


Contracted

by FHC_Lynn



Series: Contracted [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Double Penetration, Face-Sitting, Foursome, Masturbation, Mech Preg, Oral Sex, Painplay, Rope Bondage, Sex Toys, Sexual Roleplay, Sibling Incest, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Threesome, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:35:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3758110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FHC_Lynn/pseuds/FHC_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scraping the bottom of their society, Skywarp finds the solution to all their problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> a) Written for this [kink meme prompt](http://tfanonkink.dreamwidth.org/26881.html?thread=15289089#cmt15289089). Hetaira is an ancient Greek word for a highly educated, refined prostitute. I liked the sound better than concubine, anyway.
> 
> b) There is an addition of random, small part npcs because let’s face it, while more plentiful than many other types, there’s only so many seekers. I need family members. If I happen to name one/use a similar personality to someone else’s, I promise it’s coincidence.
> 
> c) If you don’t like something in the warnings, why are you even reading this? Also I don’t need an explanation of why you’re no longer going to read this. I don’t even need to hear that you are no longer reading. Honestly, that’s a guilt trip to make me ‘fix’ it.
> 
> d) I am not a BDSM practitioner. I tried to be very thorough in my research, but if you think I’ve gotten something wrong, I’m open to discussion. I appreciate hearing first hand opinions and knowledge.
> 
> e) I don’t have a beta reader. If you spot a grammatical problem or spelling error, feel free to point it out. I try to catch everything, but I’m far from perfect.

Starscream begged Primus for patience so often these days that he thought he would be struck dead any minute now, just to shut him up. At least potentially in line for the throne of Vos, Starscream had thought he had picked the perfect trine partners to win the actual designation. He really had.

The test flights had gone beautifully. Thundercracker's dry wit and sociopolitical knowledge had been evocative. Skywarp's sly scheming and brutally practical nature had been impressive. Starscream himself, of course, brought the whole package with his esteemed creation line, lauded intelligence, and devastating good looks. The bonding had gone seamlessly.

Everything had felt like perfection. Except for one unimportant problem. Overrated. Overblown.

"Are you fragging _kidding_ me?" Starscream ducked after entering their shared bedroom as a shiny something flew by his head. It shattered on contact with the wall. Maybe he should have ignored the shouting. His partners faced off in the bedroom. Yet again, the fragging had started just fine. Starscream vented. Skywarp growled, body language flaring as angrily as his field, "I am _not_ the bottom in this farce just because my creators didn't think their slag was gold."

It hadn't _gone_ fine.

_Primus. Please, by your spark, give me patience,_ Starscream stooped to pick up an imported art piece his sire had given him. The pieces left, anyway.

"Well, I don't want to take a spike," Thundercracker said patiently. He always sound patient, even when he was furious. Starscream would kill for his secret. "And _you_ asked _me_ to frag."

Right. That again.

"Silence!" Starscream shouted over them, letting his voice hit that exact octave that made Skywarp's head pound. Too bad the same trick didn't work on Thundercracker's modified audials. After Skywarp flinched and closed his mouth and Thundercracker spun around to face Starscream as well, Starscream put the pieces of his once-favorite sculpture on the sideboard. Thundercracker shifted uneasily as Starscream followed his shout with silence. Skywarp glared sullenly.

Finally, Starscream deigned to speak. " _This_ is not working. I cannot be the only one in this aerie that opens his valve. I like my spike, too, slag you both. Like _you_ , I prefer it. The tension that preference is causing is bleeding into everything else, and we can't undo our bond. Can we?"

His partners both winced. Thundercracker muttered, "I don't want to break the bond. I... Slaggit."

"Picking up my language now, huh?" Skywarp snapped back. Then he flopped face-first onto the bed. "Any ideas? I'm not the processor power here."

"Why, yes. There has _been_ a solution, Skywarp. A hetaira," Starscream said ever so sweetly. "Thundercracker, I am going to say this _once_. Only once. I no longer care how you feel about grounders."

"Starscream--!"

"Quiet!" Starscream snapped. "Your prejudice is not helping. Besides, if we mimic the _true_ elite, we'll be taken more seriously. We want to be the ruling trine, don't we? Think about it. All of the most important trines have one. Even my creators have one for their trine." Starscream watched Thundercracker flop backward on the bed beside Skywarp, and he chuckled. "Get used to the idea. And start slagging looking. I don't even care where you find one. In fact, the lower the better. They'll be more grateful."

"You're right. I just didn't want to admit defeat," Thundercracker muttered.

"If you didn't want to admit defeat, open your valve," Skywarp muttered. He quieted when Starscream glared at him. "So, how does a hetaira help? Thundercracker already has the staff in line and the debit/credit thing down. And that's not--"

"Shush. A little secret of the rich and famous, Skywarp. A hetaira is not an aerie steward. They can _do_ that, but what they _are_ is something less than a mate but far more than a servant, but not far off contract slave," Starscream said, waving Skywarp to silence. "Let's establish some terms of employment, beyond 'likes taking spikes'. He has to be gorgeous. Charming. He is going to have to understand he is as much a display piece as that statue Skywarp broke."

"I'm sorry, Star," Skywarp vented, making a face. “That’s normal? I mean, I knew Knock Out was your builder, but I thought…”

“Hetaira are mated staff,” Starscream snorted. “Now, any requests for what we want in our own hetaira?”

“What do _you_ think we should look for?” Thundercracker muttered.

"A vocalist. For performances during parties," Starscream said, patting Skywarp on the wing. He wasn't truly angry. Starscream was just fed up.

"Okay. Not just 'facin' stuff?" Skywarp asked.

"Well," Starscream said, "no. Might as well get use out of him even when he isn't flat on his back."

"Then I want someone to hang out with. I mean, if this mech's gonna be _with_ us..." Skywarp said.

"That's a good idea. Someone who can interest us. So I want someone intelligent. You want someone fun. Thundercracker?"

"Any showcase worthy talent will do," Thundercracker cleared his intake. Then he tapped a pede against the floor. "And...should we discuss kinks?"

Starscream arched both optical ridges and drawled, "Now would be the time to mention anything we want him to be willing to do or have done to him."

Skywarp raised a hand. "Mouth. I like to go deep, and I wanna leave my load on his face when I'm done. For a little bit, anyway."

There was that brutal practicality. Starscream smiled. He did love Skywarp. "All right. Anything else?"

"I want to tie him up and keep him begging," Thundercracker said finally. "And he should be willing to _try_ to take two of us at once."

Starscream stared at Thundercracker, and Skywarp sputtered. Starscream reached over and lightly patted Skywarp for attention. "His last suggestion is the only way you two are ever fragging at the same time. Hush. He's not asking to tie _you_ up. He's asking we make sure we find someone that likes it. Or, at least, isn't repulsed or frightened by it."

"Oh. Huh. Would we need toys for that? I mean, okay, you said grounders, Star, right? And he wants one to fit a couple a seeker spikes?" Skywarp asked, frowning. "We're built bigger than ground frames all over..."

"Getting toys isn't a problem," Thundercracker replied.

"Okay, but not everyone wants a fake rod crammed in there, even if they _like_ gettin' it in the valve, Thunder."

"Both of you, stop! Add 'likes toys' to the 'want' list," Starscream said. "Thunder, if you want to beat them--"

"No!" Thundercracker held up his hands. He looked faintly ill. "I don't enjoy causing pain."

"Sky?"

"Nope. Not into it either."

"Anything else?" Starscream asked. One face-shot fan, one bondage fan. How very odd that Starscream was the normal one.

"Mmm-hmm. I have one. For you," Thundercracker said, frowning at him.

"For me?" Starscream chuckled. "I don't--"

"Willing to carry," Thundercracker interrupted. "Since none of us want to."

"Oh. Well. There is that," Starscream muttered. "I am expected to have heirs."

"Also, we might want to cap him," Thundercracker murmured. "Then there will be no debate. Whatever else we have him doing, it's only his valve we want for facing."

Starscream considered that for a moment. It was the modern form of an ancient tradition. Considered more humane than full removal, the 'cap', a specially designed disc, slipped over the unpressurized spike once the panel was retracted. Once the panel was closed over it, with some small difficulty, it was designed to prevent the upper panel from recessing. Should they release the mech, or he decided to leave them, any medical facility could remove it. And that did make Starscream feel better.

"All right. I think we have a list. Start looking," Starscream said finally. "And again, Thunder, I don't care if they're from the bottom of society. They'll be _grateful_."

Thundercracker vented. "Fine. I'll keep an open mind. But I don't want to hear I can't tie him up."

"Done. For now, move over. You two owe me an apology..."

Starscream really didn't know why he still tried to frag them. It never worked out.

* * *

Skywarp tapped the bottom of his empty glass against the table in time to the slow, sad song pouring through the dive's sound system. He couldn't hear the recording's voice over the red fellow at the round shot table. The low tenor crooning over a fragile romance broken shouldn't have held his attention. He hated sappy love songs, but the mech, tall for a grounder, had been using it to distract a trio of slumming seekerlings. Lord-heirs, if Skywarp read the dabbed paint markings correctly from here.

His yellow partner had already slipped small, expensive decorations from two of the younglings. The least intoxicated would be the hardest. Skywarp grinned. The shiny grounders had some bearings. Vosian law wasn't kind to grounders, but Skywarp hated aftshaft Lord-heirs even more than he hated sappy love songs. He had watched these two several nights out of the last few months. Their marks were always the young, rich, and stupidly overcharged.

The pretty pair weren't getting much this way, really. Originally from the lowest classes of Vos, Skywarp knew what fences here paid. Starscream had pulled him out. Thundercracker had kept him out. Skywarp hadn't looked back until now. The shiny trinkets that seekers wore just didn't fetch good prices off the streets of Vos. Yellow had begun to look worried; Red had started to let mechs get handsy if it paid for fuel.

Thundercracker could keep interviewing his society picks. Skywarp agreed that pretty blue and white fellow might have been all right, but he'd tried to draw up and look down his olfactory at Skywarp. Skywarp had picked him up and forced him into the lift. He was a master in his own home, and if he didn't let Thundercracker look at him that way, the _pet_ wasn't either.

These two wouldn't look down on him. After looking this whole hetaira thing up, Skywarp hadn't seen a mention of _pairs_ , but even Starscream fought a losing battle trying to find _one_ mech that could hold them. Skywarp didn't think _one_ existed. A pair now, _this_ pair...

Skywarp had crawled all over this neighborhood after he'd first seen them. He hadn't told his partners. Thundercracker didn't want a poor nobody. Starscream was just as bad about the processor power. Skywarp was tired of arguing. This mated pair would work for him. Starscream got a vocalist. And as for Yellow... Well, Skywarp would have to ask if he did bondage.

Skywarp knew the pair had spotted him days ago. They had glanced at him many times. Tonight alone, they had glanced at him several times. So tonight, he would take the direct approach. Setting the glass on the table, Skywarp waved the service away. He needed his wits tonight. He waited until the song had ended, to lean forward on the table. Yellow glanced at him, as expected, and Skywarp crooked a finger at him. The pretty grounder frowned until Skywarp held up a cred stick.

He leaned back in his seat and grinned at the flare of desperate interest. Red glanced sharply at him, too, which startled him. They hadn't looked like they had ever afforded comm line installation. So, bonded mates? Tougher to convince, but Skywarp would try.

Skywarp tapped the cred stick against the table, following the new song's rhythm until Red patted the seekerling wrapped around him away. Red and Yellow followed the lure of real funds. Skywarp remembered the desperation at the bottom, all too well. Starscream had been right about gratitude.

Skywarp hoped they would take his offer. Maybe not tonight, but he hoped the decision would happen fast.

"Hey, we had 'em first," the apparent leader of the seekerlings called as the pair reached his table.

"Go slag yourself. I outrank you," Skywarp snorted. The seekerling snarled, but looked at Skywarp's markings before he turned away. Skywarp looked at the mated pair and pointed to the seats in front of him. "Siddown. Got some business to discuss. Server-- Gimme three _real_ glasses."

When the server had taken his glass to refill, Skywarp looked at the pair. He held up the cred stick. "This is for listening. It'll give you the credit to hole up somewhere nice and think about my offer. You'll have three days to decide. Let's start with, I _saw_ what you did. Not just now, either. You know that's a bad game to play in this city--"

"No one hires ground frames here," Yellow hissed. "Except for mining. We ain't mining."

"I'm not offering a mining job," Skywarp snickered. He paused as the server returned, then he waved the mech away. Skywarp set the cred stick on the table then looked at the pair across from him. "There's a position in my aerie you two could fill. It's not a hard job, promise. You'd live in the aerie with us, and you'd never be hungry again."

"Where's the catch?" Red asked suspiciously.

"Smart. The catch is, the position. It's a...special one. You're gonna be pretty things to show off at parties. I know you can entertain," Skywarp gestured vaguely. "But my trine needs something more than entertainers. We're lookin' for companions. You guys have talked a good game, so I ain't worried about that, either."

"All right. Then what's gonna make us need three days to decide the Well's on the plate here?" Red asked.

"'Cause grounders can be funny 'bout 'facin', and that's where my trine has some very detailed requirements," Skywarp said, tapping the cred stick.

"What? You want us to whore--" Yellow snarled.

"No. You two would be _ours_ ," Skywarp said, cutting him off. "You're mated, right? So is a trine. But we're not nearly as compatible in the bed as we are out of it. So we lookin' to hire a permanent, exclusive aide for that. I saw you two, and I want you. So here's the deal, if you can handle the private kinks and the professional socializing, we'll keep you in luxury."

"What kinda kinks?" Red asked, narrowing his bright optics.

"Deep intake penetration and face shots from me, and bondage and overload delay from one of my partners. Toys, maybe. He wanted to try spiking the same mech. Also, we need someone willing to carry for our leader. We'll be capping your spikes. We're...very particular about wanting to use our spikes. That's why we're having problems," Skywarp said, watching their faces closely. As their exchanged looks turned to vague horror, Skywarp tapped the cred stick again. "We're not cuttin' 'em off. Just limitin' you to valves. If, later on say, you really wanna carry for one another, we can have the cap removed for that time."

"We can't carry for each other," Red said slowly, after a long pause. "We're not... We're not mates. We're twins."

Skywarp firmly told his spike to _stay down_ while a host of delicious, thoroughly naughty, fantasies played in his mind. If true, he knew they really couldn't carry for each other, although being twins meant they were deeply bonded. Their spark resonances were too close for ignition, even if they were dual creations and not split sparks. Skywarp also knew that grounders could be downright _weird_ about twins. Skywarp just really, really wanted them in his bed. Now. Right now. "Twins? Primus. Wow. You _did_ come to the right place, then. Here. Take this, and think about my offer. You've got three days to think. This will put you up somewhere nice. Fuel up, clean up. And think about how much better you can have if you take our offer."

Skywarp stood up and slid the stick toward them. "If you decide you wanna take our offer, you come to Midcity Square. I'll be in the Worn Gear tavern off Artisan Connection, at this time, in three days."

Starscream would love them. Thundercracker would just have to learn. Skywarp sent up a silent prayer to Primus that he would get them in his bed within a week. He left them with the cred stick and sauntered out without looking back. He didn't want to look to hopeful.

* * *

Hours later, Sunstreaker stared down in fascination as the walk-down oil soak tub slowly filled in the hotel room's washroom. He hadn't believed Sideswipe when he first read the cred stick. Now, watching the soothing hot oil fill the soak tub, he didn't believe his brother was hesitating. Sunstreaker had a complementary wax and polish waiting on him after this soak. He would gleam, and he would feel _good_.

They had been looking at whoring themselves, anyway. At least with that purple seeker's offer, there would only be three using them. And the seeker had said they wanted companions. Sunstreaker could hope that meant they didn't just want frag dolls. As he sank into the oil soak, as he felt it seep into freshly cleaned joints at just this side of burning, and the warmth swamped over his senses, Sunstreaker touched his abdomen over his intake tank. With his belly _full_ for the first time since they had been sparklings, Sunstreaker knew he would do anything to not starve.

To not watch Sideswipe starve.

And to be treated like this for the use of his valve? For entertaining guests and employers? Sunstreaker could do it. They could tie him up and drop their fluid on his face. If they had this set up in their apartment, Sunstreaker could make himself beautiful again after. And he wouldn't be hungry and hiding from the authorities.

The heat seeped deeper into his body, and he shivered. Leaning back against the wall of the tub, Sunstreaker ran his hand down his front. Sideswipe might have a harder time, Sunstreaker supposed, but it was just equipment. In or out, did it matter if this was the reward?

"Ain't that a pretty sight?" Sideswipe's voice interrupted his thoughts. Openings his optics, Sunstreaker saw Sideswipe in the doorway. His twin walked across the huge washroom to crouch beside the tub. Sideswipe reached down to trace the seam of his chest plate. "If we're gonna do this..."

"You don't want to?"

"I'm worried. It's what older brothers do," Sideswipe chuckled. "I mean, we don't know this guy. Or the other two."

"You're only older by an hour. They said, anyway. For all we know, _I'm_ older."

"Yeah, yeah. But I'm the worrier." Sideswipe kissed the top of Sunstreaker's head, the sat his aft on the floor. "I really am worried, y'know. This... This is awesome, but if we're gonna take this...job, we gotta be careful. We might need to run again."

Sunstreaker vented, sank further into the hot oil. "I know. Make sure to get codes for accounts to drain, so we won't be broke."

"If we have to split up, we meet up at the east-west exit to town."

"With any valuables we can carry."

"All right. Move over. There's something I want to try, if we're giving up spikes on a semi-permanent basis..."

"What's that? Sunstreaker asked, frowning, but he scooted over for Sideswipe. His brother slipped into the hot oil, groaning in pleasure. Instead of answering, Sideswipe pulled Sunstreaker over until his twin straddled his lap. Sideswipe grinned at Sunstreaker, and rubbed Sunstreaker's closed interface array with his thumbs. Sunstreaker's optics went wide. "You wanna frag in a _tub_?"

"Yep. Don't you think it'd feel good to have hot, hot oil seep inside you? Make you so slick in there. Get all hot and charged up, and me unloadin' 'nough to burn you," Sideswipe whispered, lips moving softly over his throat. Sideswipe's fingers pushed inside when Sunstreaker's valve bared without a conscious decision on his part. Hot and already slippery from the oil, Sideswipe's fingers delved deep into his twin's body.

Sunstreaker groaned, need and discomfort warring in his mind. It was his fault they had been abandoned. Their creators had not been happy to have twins in the first place. It wasn't in the order of things, whatever that meant. Sunstreaker still didn't get _that_. But to have those twins all over each was even worse. Even now, they usually let mechs think they were mates with similar frames.

That seeker hadn't seemed put off, though. He had shoved that stick at them and had seemed _really_ happy to hear it. Sunstreaker just knew everything felt _right_ with Sideswipe around, and it felt good to be close to him. Would it matter if Sunstreaker couldn't have his brother's spike?

Sunstreaker gasped as his brother spread his fingers. Hard to think about not having it when he was about to get it. But even if he didn't have Sideswipe's spike, he still had Sideswipe's spark. And that was everything. Sliding his hands over his brother's body to that jutting spike, Sunstreaker grasped it firmly, pumping it. Sideswipe's whispered words grew ragged against his throat. Sideswipe thrust into his hands, and Sunstreaker sought the ridge of sensory nodes along the bottom. He ran his thumb up and down it, pressing into it just the way Sideswipe liked.

Growling, Sideswipe pulled his fingers free and grabbed Sunstreaker's hips. Sunstreaker grabbed the tub's edge for balance and let Sideswipe guide him down. The stretch felt so very good. Sunstreaker caught his brother's mouth, mirroring above Sideswipe's oh so welcome invasion below.

Sideswipe's hands tightened, guiding Sunstreaker to a hard, fast rhythm. Sunstreaker, sensory network already riding the edge, didn't take long. His mind registered nothing but slick wetness, pleasant fullness, and Sideswipe's body, hot even against the oil. Sunstreaker cried out, and Sideswipe swallowed the sound. Kept pulling golden hips down over his spike until the heat became the all too welcome burn of Sideswipe's overload.

Sunstreaker collapsed against his twin, cooling system straining against his own core temperature let alone the heat of Sideswipe's body or the oil gently sliding around his body. Sideswipe's hand stroked his back, and Sunstreaker heard Sideswipe laugh softly. "I'll miss being the cause of this view. Oh, well. Maybe they'll still lemme watch, huh?"

"That purple guy seemed excited about us being twins," Sunstreaker mumbled against Sideswipe's neck.

"Hmm. If not, I'll see about somethin' we can use. I like this look on you."

"Mmm." Sunstreaker pressed closer. "As long as you're there."

"Same goes for you. C'mon. Let's spend the night making a few memories..." Sideswipe said softly, hands moving over Sunstreaker's body again.


	2. An Arrangement

"Skywarp," Thundercracker began in the careful tones one used with misbehaving sparklings and utter morons, "Where did you meet these two again?"

The pair in question sat at the bar, unaware that they were being watched just yet. Thundercracker had to admit, they were _lovely_ for grounders. The stubby audial horns of the mostly red and white were quite fetching. The upswept fairings of the other had a more refined elegance. Both frames looked enough alike that Skywarp's claim of beings twins might be true. Broad, sturdy, but not too blocky. Tall for ground frames, both would just come up to his chin. That they would so comfortably fit in his arms did appeal, but...

But they weren't _appropriate_. Thundercracker vented. Perhaps Starscream was right about his prejudice.

"On the other side of town, in this little dive there. They were hittin' rich seekerlings for pretties. Don't you give me that look. You've never been hungry," Skywarp snorted. Then he waved at the pair. "Starscream said look at the bottom, and just _look_ at them. The red one's got a beautiful voice, too. Starscream'll like that."

"And the yellow?"

"Well, he looked less freaked out and more thoughtful when I mentioned you tying them up. And if they're here, they accepted the terms. And Starscream said we could take twins for hetaira. That there was a precedent," Skywarp said the word carefully, then he turned on his heel and marched across the tavern. Thundercracker vented and followed much less certainly.

The pair looked up as Skywarp greeted them. Leaning against the bar, Skywarp caught the tender's attention. The tender pointed Skywarp toward the back and gave him the number of the room reserved for them. Thundercracker didn't mutter only because it was beneath him. The pair followed Skywarp warily and kept glancing at him as he followed. The view, he had to admit, appealed as much from the back.

And with the right chains draped across their frames, it would be even better. Particularly the yellow; gloss black chains, crisscrossing that bright yellow gold... Thundercracker frowned at the thought, glanced at Skywarp as they entered the private room, and shut the door behind him. Skywarp grinned at them. "Glad you two came. You decided to take our offer?"

"We had some questions," the red one said.

"I have a copy of the contract you'll sign. That might answer some. Thundercracker can translate the crazy parts into plain Cybertronian," Skywarp replied. Thundercracker vented.

"An' why should we trust him?"

Thundercracker sputtered. Skywarp cackled. "Wow, looka that! I thought I'd never see you lose it."

Turning his coldest expression on Skywarp did not stop his partner's laughter. Angry and offended, Thundercracker growled, "I have no interest in misleading you. We need someone to fill the position. Skywarp thinks you will do."

"And you?" the yellow asked, optics narrowed.

"I think he's scraping the bottom. But Starscream suggested it might be the only place to look. So _I_ am waiting until I know more before I vote against you," Thundercracker snapped. Forcing his temper back down, he met the yellow twin's gaze coldly.

"Lemme see that contract," the red said. Skywarp leaned forward, pulling the datapad from his subspace. He went over it, just as Thundercracker had gone over it with him, hours before. He turned to Thundercracker when he didn't remember or understand himself and let Thundercracker carefully explain. The pair waited until the seekers finished. The red tapped his fingers against the side of the 'pad, thinking hard.

He put it down slowly and looked at them. "Where's your third? You called him Starscream, right?"

"Yeah. He's in an emergency meeting. Since he's got no kinks to speak of, he said we could handle this. He liked your voice and both your looks, when I shared the recording I made," Skywarp said.

"Huh. Thanks. So, that makes you the whips and chains mech?" the red one said to Thundercracker.

"I am not going to cause pain," Thundercracker snapped, thoroughly annoyed, "I enjoy restraining my partners, not giving them pain."

"Okay, but that still means you'd have one of us tied up and this saying you own us."

"Why would I waste time tormenting you? We need you comfortable, so you will take care of us." Thundercracker frowned at the red twin.

"How does this contract end? If it comes to that. We'd like to stay comfortable," the yellow twin said.

"Hetaira can resign with a comfortable severance. That is this paragraph down here," Thundercracker answered patiently and scrolling to it. "While you're with us, you'll be using the household accounts."

"How much can we use for stuff we need?" the yellow twin demanded.

"Your _needs_ will be met. Your wants can be discussed," Thundercracker said dryly. "I would recommend you not dabble in anything illegal, however, and you shouldn't need anything we can't get for you, otherwise."

"This is awful generous for a private whore."

"You would not be _whores_!" Thundercracker rumbled emphatically at the yellow twin. "The position is, legally and socially, related to mate. Hetaira are meant to be part of the household family, not the household staff. Any creations made with you are legal heirs. You will be their legal caretakers. Yes, you are expected to be submissive to us, _We_ are the trine. _We_ are the power. Hetaira are meant to be the servants within the family."

The pair glanced at each other. The red lifted his chin. The yellow shrugged. The red vented, "How exactly does the capping work?"

"It's this." Skywarp brought the little disk Starscream had given him out of his subspace. He put it on the table. "Starscream said it slips over when you retract the panels. Little push closed, and it locks the panel."

"Starscream or I will put them in. I've had experience, and Starscream is better with delicate tasks than Skywarp," Thundercracker said quietly. His gaze followed the yellow twin's hand as he picked up the disk and turned it over in his fingers. He would enjoy putting them in place, too. And then moving below to rouse their bodies in better ways.

Skywarp snorted, "Stop picking on me. I found mechs worth the effort. You were still interviewing society brats."

Thundercracker made a dismissive gesture. These two would still have to be trained. They sounded more than intelligent enough, at least. Of the twins, he asked, "Will you sign the contract?"

"We can resign? If it comes to it?" the red one asked.

Thundercracker scrolled the contract to the termination clauses. He waited until the pair had read the terms under which they could end the contract through twice before he repeated the question, "Will you sign the contract?"

"I'm Sideswipe," the red one said after a pause. "My brother's Sunstreaker. If you'll do all that, we'd work for it."

Skywarp grinned and held out the stylus. "Here. You can bring your stuff here, and we'll take you home."

Sunstreaker shifted in his seat and tapped his fingers on the table. "We don't have anything. Always...moved around too much."

"Nothing? Oh... Well, that'll change," Skywarp said softly as Sideswipe drew a sloppy, but legible glyph for his name. Sunstreaker took stylus and pad from him. As Thundercracker hummed happily to himself, he noted Sunstreaker drew his name with delicate precision. Skywarp continued, "We'll just take you home now."

Thundercracker frowned and put a hand on Sunstreaker's arm. "How old are you?"

The twins glanced at each. Sunstreaker looked down, and Sideswipe eyed Thundercracker and Skywarp. Finally, he said, "We're not sure. Everything's been online for a while..."

"Primus," Thundercracker swore. He felt like he needed to rinse solvent through his processor. He picked up the datapad. "All right. We're...taking you home. Before we file this, though, I want to make sure you can legally sign it."

"We can."

"Are you certain?"

"Uh..." Sideswipe mumbled.

"Look," Skywarp said, waving Thundercracker'd sidelong look off, "We'll change the deal a little if you're not."

Resigned, Thundercracker vented, "We've had enough difficulty filling this position that I would be willing to wait on you. It would give us more time to train you for your other tasks. But I am not touching someone underage."

"Okay. We... We like the offer. I know I sound paranoid," Sideswipe said grudgingly.

"You're young and scared. Of us, your situation, and that this is the best opportunity you'll have," Thundercracker finished for him. He thought, vaguely, that he and Skywarp would go to the special pit. He put the pad in his subspace. "Come home. In the morning, we'll make sure we can file this as-is, or if we need to visit new terms. But you've a point. If _all_ of the relevant protocols are online, you should be adults."

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker relaxed and got up when Thundercracker gestured. Well, Skywarp and Starscream had both been insistent about finding bottom level grounders. These two did look grateful. Thundercracker just hoped that they were _legal_.

[Star,] Thundercracker sent across his comm line, [there is a complication...]

* * *

"Well," Starscream murmured to himself. "Sky really outdid himself."

As he stumbled tiredly past the family room, Starscream had seen a ground frame thrown across the sectional seating of the family room. Pausing to study the pretty grounder in admiration, Starscream leaned against the archway. After the emergency meeting at the University, he had spent four hours visiting _Kaon_ , of all places, to find records on their new pets.

Starscream was _not_ fragging younglings any more than Thundercracker. And he wouldn't let Skywarp get himself in that much trouble. Both Skywarp and Thundercracker, to Starscream's surprise, had insisted they wanted this pair. Studying the sculpt of the red one's head--Sideswipe, Thundercracker's message named the red one Sideswipe, yes?--and the graceful functionality of the mech's body, Starscream decided he agreed about this one.

And the horns were _adorable_.

The rest of him, all over, was tall and broad, for a grounder. Still shorter than seekers, but Starscream thought he would fit below his chin, and he rather liked the notion. He also liked the red and white. And the black accents matched well. Pity it he possessed no blue.

"Gonna stare all night?" The soft, rich voice slurred with recharge. Starscream no longer needed Skywarp's recording to be certain that he sang. One optic had cracked open, barely brightened enough to see a bright blue uncommon to Vos or Kaon.

"It's morning, actually. I thought that I would admire the view. You're quite lovely," Starscream said. He folded down onto the sectional not far from the red twin. Slowly. Starscream didn't want to fall over in exhaustion. "You're Sideswipe, aren't you?"

"You Starscream?" Pulling himself up, Sideswipe rubbed the heel of one hand across his optic, clearing debris. "They said you'd know..."

"If you're legal? Yes, I found your records in Kaon. Paid to have some disappear, too. Are you going to treat us the way your records imply?" Starscream smiled at the flinch. The mech's acute embarrassment reassured Starscream. He patted the seat next to him. "Come here?"

Sideswipe watched Starscream for a moment, then pulled his legs onto the couch. Starscream arched a brow ridge. The red devil crawled across the seating. Optics narrowing as he watched the play of cable and plating, Starscream felt a stir of interest. "Putting on a show for me? At _your_ age..."

"You're too calm for me to be too young," Sideswipe said. The red twin straddled Starscream's lap instead of sitting beside him. Starscream felt a surge of pleased vanity; the mech did fit snugly in his hold very well. Starscream pulled Sideswipe close for a deep kiss. Wrapping his arms around the grounder, Starscream pressed closer. It felt good to have an eager partner; his trine had too many problems in the bedroom for eagerness with each other now. Sideswipe's hands dipped and stroked into all the seams and crevices of Starscream's plating. The red mech broke the kiss. "You don't act like you're worried 'bout us. What we'll do, I mean."

"Skywarp did many questionable things himself. I'm willing to believe that you won't frag this up. He certainly didn't. It's the best chance you've been handed so far, isn't it?" Starscream grasped the mech's waist, rubbing his thumbs up and down the edges of plating. "I'm tired and filthy. Help me clean up, then I'd like you to recharge with me."

Sideswipe got to his pedes and followed Starscream to the washroom. While he looked around Starscream to note the settings the seeker used on the fixtures, the red twin didn't immediately join him under the spray. Starscream watched silently as the grounder investigated the storage drawers and closet to find the soft scrub brushes. Starscream smiled and waved the twin back to him. Sideswipe joined him, brushes in hand, and used the cleaner Starscream handed him to soap the scrubbing brush.

Starscream relaxed under the mech's hands, stirring only to show him how to properly handle the more intricate and carefully calibrated bits of seeker anatomy. Thundercracker had mentioned Sideswipe being the more cautious, so Starscream was pleased with his willingness to learn. Trust had to be mutual in an aerie. He understood caution and reservation, but hostility would be a disaster.

Sideswipe also accepted his affection easily; another excellent point. Seekers liked to touch familiar mechs. He showed no fear, too, when Starscream firmly pushed him against the wall under the spray. The grounder kissed back every bit as passionately. He also squirmed wonderfully and reached down to find Starscream's pleasure points when the seeker sought after his.

Yes, Skywarp had outdone himself.

Turning off the spray, Starscream guided them both to the closet for the towels there. He shook his head at Sideswipe's surprise when he rubbed the grounder dry after Sideswipe finished drying him. Then he lightly pushed Sideswipe toward his personal bedroom. Starscream would think on how to redivide their space later. Thundercracker would want a playroom for his whips and chains thing. The twins couldn't be expected to recharge there. Perhaps he could put the playroom on the second level? Soundproof that storage room next to his own office. The current guest room could be theirs. Guests could be moved down to the third floor, which was mostly storage now. Just above the aerie servants on the fourth level. That would be perfect. Maybe. And maybe he should rest on it.

Pulling his mind back to the present, Starscream sank onto his bed and tugged Sideswipe down over him. Sideswipe straddled him, like he had on the sectional, and leaned down for a deep kiss. He lifted his head when Starscream squeezed his shoulder and met the seeker's gaze curiously. Gently, Starscream cupped Sideswipe's jaw and traced the shape of it with his thumb. "I feel I should ask, given your age, if you've interfaced with anyone other than your brother."

Sideswipe's hesitation answered the question before the mech himself did. "No. We...didn't even do it with each other...until recently."

"That silly thing grounders have about how wrong it was?" Starscream vented as Sideswipe flinched. "Vosians know better. He's part of you. Like Skywarp and Thundercracker are part of me, now. Besides, I very much want to see you two together."

Sideswipe laughed, a little nervously, then looked startled when Starscream pulled him down. "We're not...? I mean, I--"

Starscream laughed; he realized Sideswipe's array panel had warmed. Sideswipe twitched and looked away. "You _do_ want the position, then, don't you? It's not simply economical?"

"Well. We dunno you, not yet, but seekers are... Well, _you're_ all good looking. And only Thundercracker's been a kind of jerk, but he's not too bad." Sideswipe looked back down at Starscream intently. "And _you_ seem to like me all right."

"Very much so. I like my partners to be eager. At the moment, however, I really am tired. Recharge with me, at least for a while. When I cycle back up, I'll have the energy for you." Starscream stroked the grounder's side, smiling as the young mech shivered. The red twin fitted himself comfortably over Starscream, and the seeker listened to his systems slow in rest. Starscream closed his optics and allowed himself to slip away.

When Starscream finally cycled back up, Sideswipe still rested on top of him. He had slumped to one side, loosely snuggled. Starscream felt a bit of nostalgia; Skywarp had cuddled like that, before their egos had begun to win out over young love. Optics narrowing thoughtfully, Starscream ran a hand down Sideswipe's back. The mech stirred slowly. Sideswipe opened just one optic again, and Starscream laughed softly. He tagged that memory to keep.

The fuzzy, warm not-awake look stirred more than his spark. His spike pinged insistently for release. Pushing himself up, Starscream flipped their positions. Sideswipe squeaked, and Starscream grinned down at him. "That's better."

"You coulda tried 'Roll over, Si,' y'know," Sideswipe snorted.

"Really? I'll have to try that next time," Starscream drawled. Then he rested a hand on Sideswipe's chest when he sat up. "Stay lying back. Since you both signed, and I filed the contract... They _did_ tell you, didn't they?"

Starscream opened the drawer in his bedside table and pulled out a small case. Starscream noted that its mate was missing. Thundercracker must have taken it for the other one. Sideswipe shivered a little uneasily. "The cap?"

"Yes. I'm sure they told you that it's not damaging. There is a sealant--to protect your spike and keep it clean. Any good medical facility will have access to the solvent and tools to remove it." Thundercracker had been careful in his selection of products, Starscream knew; a happy family meant a happy home. And that in turn meant healthy and comfortable.

"Okay. So...clean up, dry off, and you put it in and close up?" Sideswipe asked. Then he got his elbows under him and looked up at Starscream with a lopsided grin. "Right. You know that's not gonna make you the boss."

"Now, now. You signed an obedience clause," Starscream said with a purr.

"Doing what you say doesn't make _me_ the submissive one. We goin' to the washroom? Or you got another idea? Shouldn't need much. We cleaned up before we met up with Skywarp and Thundercracker." Sideswipe began to move his aft up and down Starscream's thigh. His warm, closed array teased the seeker's sensory network.

"Open," Starscream commanded, tapping Sideswipe's spike cover. "And keep it down."

"Didn't trigger it, mech." Sideswipe laughed and lay back down. Spreading his legs wide for Starscream's ease, Sideswipe recessed both panels. Lubricant shimmered around the valve rim, and Starscream could see the red lining clenching with readiness. Sideswipe's spike rested quietly. It gleamed in the soft lighting of Starscream's bedroom, and the seeker thought it was almost a shame to cap it. But he needed the peace from his trine partners. Pulling a buffing cloth from the drawer, Starscream slowly wiped the spike and its housing. Sideswipe moaned at the touch, black hands clenching on the bed cover.

"Keep it down," Starscream reminded him softly. To his pleased surprise, the cloth was clean when he pulled it back, even after he delved into some of intricate folds. Starscream picked up the spray bottle of sealant and chuckled, "This might be a little cold..."

Sideswipe smothered his yelp when Starscream liberally applied the sealant. He stroked the grounder's frame, making a soothing noise. "I have to make sure you're covered. Any gap could lead to corrosion. And we don't want that, do we?"

"No," Sideswipe hissed in annoyance. He held himself still as Starscream settled the little disc in place. The seeker wiped the excess with the cloth, then sprayed more sealant over it. Sideswipe looked up with an arched brow plate.

"To protect the inside of the panel. You don't want any gaps, above or below," Starscream explained with a slow grin. After Sideswipe sent the override command to close the panel, Starscream worked carefully to help it fit over the disc. Sideswipe shivered, not entirely at ease, as the seeker wiped the last excess from his array. Starscream leaned forward over Sideswipe to lower himself down to press the grounder into his bed. "Now, that sealant is heat activated, so let's warm you up, hmm?"

Sideswipe lifted his head for a kiss, but Starscream didn't miss the edge of worry. Sliding one hand under Sideswipe's shoulders, he held the grounder up to deepen the kiss. Starscream's other hand dropped from soothingly petting the sealed spike, to explore the wet rim of Sideswipe's valve. Given the size difference and lack of experience, Starscream wasn't surprised to find a tight fit for the two fingers he slipped, joint deep, inside. The grounder gasped into Starscream's kiss.

Starscream broke the kiss and looked down at Sideswipe. "Are you okay with this happening now?"

"If you stop, I swear I'm gonna break somethin'," the mech gasped. Red and white plating flared to dissipate heat, and Starscream grinned as the mech under him tried to thrust up, wanting his fingers deeper inside.

"Your enthusiasm is greatly appreciated," Starscream said, and he sank his fingers deeper into the tight heat. The thick, wet lubricant did its job, but the _pressure_ around his fingers taunted him. Starscream shivered and finally recessed his panel to allow his spike freedom. He wanted inside the grounder. Now.

"Enthusiasm's fadin'. Sun is _not_ that intimidatin'," Sideswipe laughed nervously, looking down Starscream's body.

"Mm," Starscream murmured, kissing the red chest. Then he arched up, only slightly awkward, to brace his hands on either side of the grounder under him. Sideswipe put his hands up to explore Starscream's chest. Groaning as the grounder found the domed paneling over his spark chamber, Starscream lined himself up. "Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. Just be a little bit tight. Relax. Easy. Easy... Relax."

Starscream savored the open-mouthed keen as he deliberately, languorously pushed inside. The grounder babbled nonsense, but stayed perfectly still until Starscream's hips came flush to his. His whispered plea to Primus made Starscream laugh, "Are you all right?"

"Don't you dare stop fraggjn' me to _talk_!" Sideswipe hissed. His fingers tweaked a cable behind Starscream's plating, and the seeker groaned. Gently, remembering the grounder's concern, Starscream pulled back, nearly all the way. He repeated his initial slow, slow thrust. Sideswipe growled, curling up against Starscream. Black hands moved everywhere on the seeker's body, teasing his sensory net. "C'mon, move. Move."

Starscream caught the grounder's mouth, mimicking the slow build of his thrusts into the tight, welcoming heat of Sideswipe's body. Temptation to just frag the grounder into the bed grew as Sideswipe got some leverage with his pedes and lifted himself to meet Starscream. Sideswipe broke their kiss and bite down on Starscream's shoulder, smothering his own shout.

Sideswipe's valve tightened hard around Starscream's spike. The tiny, rippling lightning of overload danced over that lovely frame, and Starscream shuddered, holding himself still. "Very good. A little more patience would be nice, but you are _beautiful_."

Sideswipe laughed into his throat and licked the marks he had left. The grounder wiggled his hips, making Starscream moan. "Gonna do it again? Maybe I'll get it this time, huh?"

"Well..." Starscream purred over one of those stubby horns. Sideswipe shivered. His valve tightened around Starscream's spike. The seeker hissed. "You like that spot, do you? I'll have to remember that."

Sideswipe bucked into Starscream's thrust, valve tightening further, greedily, and the seeker shuddered. Shifting his balance to one hand, Starscream pushed the freed hand under the middle of Sideswipe's back. The seeker pulled up, effectively tilting Sideswipe's hips for his spike. Then Starscream began to _move_. The slight change in angle both allowed Starscream to plunge deeper into the wet, burning valve, and it made sure that every stroke brushed over that charged anterior node.

Moaning into Starscream's throat, the grounder began to tremble. His hands found Starscream's spark chamber again, teasing the edges, until Starscream had driven him over the edge of another overload. Starscream let his control go. It had been almost too long since Starscream had had such a welcoming response in his bed. Holding Sideswipe still against him with one arm, Starscream thrust over and over through Sideswipe's overload, fully intent on blacking the mech out with pleasure before finishing himself.

The grounder squirmed in his hold, all coherency gone in whispered pleas for relief or release. Starscream didn't know or care. The valve gripping his spike so wonderfully rippled with charge. Hot lubricant coated Sideswipe's thighs and Starscream's hips, and Starscream's cables tensed as overload hit him with the force of pavement from a nosedive. He kept moving, watching Sideswipe writhe on his spike as Starscream pumped hot transfluid into him.

The lovely, lovely grounder overloaded one last time, head tipped back, mouth open on a gasping cry, with released charge flowing up and down his body. Starscream shuddered and rumbled with fulfilled pleasure as Sideswipe collapsed under him.

Starscream bet the mech wouldn't care about the cap now.

Gently disengaging himself, Starscream let his systems recover for a few long, beautiful minutes before fumbling for another soft cloth. Careful of the sensitivity of the equipment he had thoroughly abused, Starscream cleaned their combined mess from the outside of Sideswipe's body.

Purring to himself, he bent down to blow across the bared valve. Sideswipe himself barely twitched, but the valve's cover slipped closed protectively, trapping Starscream's transfluid inside. Exactly where he wanted it. Starscream pulled a warming mesh over the young mech as he got off the bed. He then put away the sealant and the box, and cleaned himself up. He needed fuel, and his chronometer told him that he was already late to start his day. Glancing back at the blacked out mech on his bed, Starscream didn't care at all.

But he _would_ have to try the other one soon. And he would have to ask Thundercracker how that had gone.


	3. A Discussion

Sunstreaker stirred reluctantly. His internal chronometer told him it was midday. His audials told him that he wasn't alone. Opening his optics corrected his opinion. He rested alone on a bed, but he saw Thundercracker through an archway to an office. Sunstreaker sat up, pushing the warming mesh off. Drawn by the movement, the dark blue seeker's gaze lifted from the desk. Thundercracker tapped a quick sequence of glyphs on the holodisplay, and the whole thing went dark. "Good, Sunstreaker. You're awake."

"You didn't have to stop," the yellow twin said with a yawn. Skywarp had wanted to play round shot for hours on the seekers' table last night. Sideswipe had passed out early, and when Sunstreaker had finally pleaded exhaustion, Skywarp had put him in here. "This your room? Skywarp put me in here..."

"That's because I told him to. Starscream commed before he came home. The contract has been filed as-is." Thundercracker held out a hand and gestured Sunstreaker to come closer. "This morning, Starscream also told me that he met your brother."

"If Si's screwed this up..."

"Nothing like that. Starscream has put his cap in place. I would like to do the same for you." Thundercracker smiled and beckoned Sunstreaker with one crooked finger. "Come here, please."

"Where's Sideswipe?" Reaching mentally for his brother produced a distracted buzz.

"Out with Skywarp. They went shopping," Thundercracker replied. Then he repeated his request, "Come here."

Sunstreaker hesitated. Thundercracker hadn't been the friendliest mech last night. And he still had some concerns about the tying up thing. Still, for what the seekers promised them... Venting, Sunstreaker got off the mech's bed and walked into the tiny office. Thundercracker pushed his chair back and guided Sunstreaker to lean on the desk. Sunstreaker fidgeted in place. "Are you going to tie me up?"

"I would like to, Sunstreaker," Thundercracker reached up, stroking a finger down an audial fairing. "Would you let me? I don't have all the implements I used to have right now. I'll have to acquire them again. I had thought I would need to give up on my pleasures."

Sunstreaker shivered as the seeker traced his dark fingers down Sunstreaker's much brighter throat and chest. Sunstreaker had to clear his intake before speaking. A jerk he might be, but Thundercracker was a well-built jerk, and Sunstreaker had never had anyone but Sideswipe touch him so gently. It felt _good_. Sunstreaker consciously blocked out his brother now. Otherwise, Sideswipe would feel the curl of desire that started humming through his body, if he reached for Sunstreaker. "How...would this work? It's not somethin' Si ever tried on me."

"I didn't think either of you had done things my way. First, we discuss a word. Should I do anything to frighten, upset, or, Primus forbid, hurt you, I want you to say the word," Thundercracker said. His hand had traced the edges of Sunstreaker's chest plate down to rub small circles over his abdominal seam.

Sunstreaker lifted a hand, intending to push Thundercracker's hand away. He paused uncertainly then pressed the hand closer instead. He turned the thought over in his mind and reminded himself where he could be right now. Thundercracker said he didn't like to cause pain. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were wanted here. "Like 'stop'?"

"If that works for you," Thundercracker said softly. "Right now, I will only restrain your hands. I want to put the cap in place. The sealant used with it is heat activated, so it is best for you to overload, after placement, to activate the seal. I would like to interface with you, to overload myself."

"Sealant?"

"Like we discussed last night, it can be removed by medics, if our contract is dissolved. You will not be able to release your spike after it is done, otherwise." The seeker looked up at him, red optics bright.

"Okay," Sunstreaker said. He shivered under Thundercracker's gaze. "You said you don't like to hurt. I'm...willing to try."

The hand at Sunstreaker's middle pressed just a bit more firmly. "Thank you, Sunstreaker. Will you please sit on my desk?"

"You can call me Sun. Si does. My brother." Sunstreaker cycled his optics. By now, he had gotten used to the calls, the grabs, and outright demands. The polite, nearly innocuous request disarmed him. Fidgeting in place for a few seconds longer, he debated. Then he put his palms flat on the desk behind him and hoisted himself up.

Thundercracker smiled at him. Instead of going for the array spread in front of him, the seeker stroked along the bottom of Sunstreaker's chest plate. "Thank you, Sunstreaker-- Sun. Now, if you would please give me your hands? Wrists inward, please. A little farther apart-- Thank you."

Thundercracker brought a pair of wide, padded cuffs from his subspace. Sunstreaker stared at them and snorted as the seeker put them on his wrists, "So, you had Skywarp dump me in your bed, but you want to 'face on your desk."

"The light bar over it is low enough for you to reach and sturdy enough not to come down when you pull," Thundercracker said distractedly as he hooked a chain with a slip catch to the cuffs' short chain.

"What?" Sunstreaker looked up only a second before Thundercracker stood, lifted Sunstreaker's hands by the cuffs, and fastened the slip catch around the light bar. The seeker used the catch to tighten the chain until Sunstreaker couldn't quite wiggle around on the desk.

"There. I will have better next time," Thundercracker promised softly and petted his abdomen again. Sunstreaker suppressed the urge to shiver. He felt vulnerable like this, with the larger mech bending over him. Thundercracker looked down at him for a moment, optics tracing over his body. "I had thought chains, but now I think rope would be better. A gloss black, tightly woven. Something strong. It would go so well with your plating."

Sunstreaker did shiver this time, and the seeker bent to kiss his forehead. Core temperature rising fast, Sunstreaker looked up at the chain, then down at Thundercracker. The seeker smiled slowly. "Go ahead. Pull. The cuffs and the bar will hold."

He wasn't that much smaller than the seekers. Sunstreaker knew he wasn't. They all topped him by about a head and not much more. The seeker's hands fell to his aft and pulled him forward until _just_ his aft remained on the desk. It took away the little movement he had had, including the leverage to kick with any power. Sunstreaker _felt_ small and helpless, and he couldn't stop the tremor riding his struts and cables.

Thundercracker's hands smoothed up his frame to rest at the small of his back. Fingers stroked him soothingly. "You're very warm, Sunstreaker. Do you need me to let you go?"

Sunstreaker's vocalizer cracked in static. He coughed and tried again. "No. I'm... I'm all right."

"Good. I need you to open your spike housing, and you need to keep it from pressurizing. The sealant is cold, but you need to hold still. When I tell you to close, I will need to help it over the cap. You will not be able to release your spike after it is done. Do you understand?"

Still shaking, Sunstreaker nodded. Thundercracker removed his hand from Sunstreaker's back to cup the grounder's chin. "Say yes or no, please. I do not want any confusion."

"Yes," Sunstreaker mumbled.

"'Yes, sir', if you would, Sunstreaker," the seeker instructed softly. Thundercracker rubbed his thumb over the edge of Sunstreaker's cheek plate. Sunstreaker felt his insides tighten. Hard.

"Yes, sir," he whispered.

"That is perfect, Sun. Remember, if you need this to _stop_ , it will. You only need to say so. Open, please." Thundercracker's other hand slid around Sunstreaker's body to cover the bright plating just above his spike panel until Sunstreaker recessed it. "Very good. Now stay very still, Sunstreaker."

Shocking cold hit his inactive spike and housing, and Sunstreaker locked his joints to hold still. Optics wide, Sunstreaker watched Thundercracker put the small black disc in place over the clear stuff he had sprayed on the top half of Sunstreaker's array. The seeker put a dab more over it, then he stroked one finger over the plating above Sunstreaker's spike. As Sunstreaker let the cover close, Thundercracker gently helped it all the way. The pressure was odd, but not uncomfortable.

The seeker produced a cloth to wipe him down. Then his hands trailed lightly up Sunstreaker's body. "All done. How does it feel?"

"Weird. Doesn't hurt, but..."

"But you know it's there. Perfect. I picked them based on your size. Now, remember to say 'sir', Sunstreaker. Do you like the cuffs? Your array is hot." The seeker's hands still lightly traced invisible patterns against Sunstreaker's plating. Thundercracker touched his stretched cables just firmly enough to remind Sunstreaker of his precarious position. The dark blue mech leaned forward, looming over him, and Sunstreaker's valve cover snapped back without him deciding it.

"Please. I don't-- I want-- Frag me already!" Sunstreaker yanked on the chain of his cuffs, struggling for just a little bit more room. Rocking forward on the desk, Sunstreaker fell against Thundercracker. The seeker caught him, big hands around Sunstreaker's hips.

"Say 'sir'," Thundercracker reminded him. "Your valve is wet and cycling hard, Sunstreaker. I take it that you _are_ enjoying the restraints? That is very good to hear, Sun. Here, tilt back for me, please? Just like that, yes."

Sunstreaker moaned as the edge of the desk pressed against the gathered membrane of his valve, and he rocked back as the flier ordered. A soft something wedged under Sunstreaker, protecting his open valve from the desk's edge now. Looking down his own body, he saw it was only a cloth. It also pressed firmly against the exposed sensors as he rocked on it. He couldn't stop his moan.

Thundercracker's hands then pressed low on his pelvic plating and dipped below the seam's edge into his hip joints. Big thumbs slipped over the top edge of the same plate to press against the tightly packed platelets of the grounder's build chamber. Sunstreaker hadn't thought it was sensitive, but the charge Thundercracker rubbed into his hips traveled to valve and middle, and he rocked faster on the edge of the desk. "Please-- Sir! Please, I--"

"That's very, very good, Sun. Keep moving just like you are. Overload for me. I know you're very close. You are doing beautifully well. I can feel how much you need your release. Let go. I am right here. You are beautiful, Sunstreaker," Thundercracker's praise rolled through him like high grade. The hands on his body pressed a little more firmly, helping him to roll his bare, wet valve on the cloth between him and the desk. Sunstreaker lost track of the seeker's words. The soft, pleased tone complemented the firm caresses increasing his charge, and the barely there press of the soft cloth.

His valve spasmed when overload broke through his senses. Thundercracker's hands moved to his aft, still moving him. The seeker rocked him back, then forward again, and Sunstreaker didn't know what words he said. The continued off and on pressure from the cloth on his sensors sent shockwaves through him. Perhaps it was only an incoherent moan of his pleasure.

Wide hands grabbed the backs of his thighs. Sunstreaker felt his legs lifted and spread open. He felt the cloth drop away, and he shouted as a thick spike pushed inside his valve. Sunstreaker hid his face, optics closing, against the seeker's neck, feeling the seeker's groan of pleasure. Thundercracker pushed inside him until Sunstreaker thought he could feel that spike in his intake, only to have the mech pull out.

Sunstreaker vented hard and begged the mech to _do_ something. Anything. One big hand lifted Sunstreaker's jaw, and he meet Thundercracker's kiss hungrily. The seeker pushed him back just enough to increase the pressure on Sunstreaker's restraints. Thundercracker pinned Sunstreaker's hips against the desk and began to thrust slow and deep into him. The seeker nearly left his body completely before returning. Every sensory node in Sunstreaker's valve pulsed with charge. Thundercracker still held his jaw and brushed a thumb over his cheek plate again teasing his optics open again.

Caught under the lust-dark gaze, Sunstreaker's sensory net spilled released charge across his circuits, setting them on fire with feeling. The sound of praise filled his audials like the pure heat of the seeker's transfluid inside him. For one, glorious moment Sunstreaker felt like he was flying.

He slumped against the seeker, moaning softly as the high faded. The seeker's pleasant murmur in his audial became sensible words, and his valve throbbed. He shuddered, hissing, as the seeker pulled free. Thundercracker rubbed his jaw; concern lit the mech's optics. "Did I hurt you, Sunstreaker?"

"You're a lot bigger than I was expecting. I'll be fine. Just gotta get used to it," Sunstreaker grunted. "Lemme go? My shoulders are starting to hurt."

Thundercracker released the slip catch, holding Sunstreaker's hands up, in spite of his growl. The seeker brought them down slowly to rest them in Sunstreaker's lap. Thundercracker gently massaged the tensed cabling in his shoulders before the seeker opened the cuffs. The seeker tipped his face up with two fingers under his jaw, head tilted thoughtfully. Then he helped Sunstreaker to a shaky stand. Sunstreaker wobbled back to the bed with Thundercracker's help.

"Were you ever so sensitive with Sideswipe?" the blue seeker asked as he curled up next to Sunstreaker. "Please be honest, not stoic. I want you to enjoy my touch, not dread the aftermath."

Sunstreaker fidgeted, more comfortable, now, on the bed with his legs closed. It had, sometimes, gotten to be too much. Looking sidelong at the flier, Sunstreaker frowned. Finally, he said, "It didn't happen all the time. Just sometimes, it was..."

"Too good. And too much. Thank you. That will make it easier to plan for your comfort, Sun. I don't want your pain." The flier lifted himself to loom over Sunstreaker and petted down his side soothingly.

"Oh." Sunstreaker had wondered, before, if something was wrong with him. The flier seemed pleased, though. Thundercracker ran a hand lightly up and down his side again. Sunstreaker found himself curling into the mech and tracing idle patterns over the domed cover of the seeker's spark. His harsh venting eased, too, and he became aware of Thundercracker's hand resting lightly over the pelvic seam of his hip.

Thundercracker's thumb made little circles near Sunstreaker's valve. Embarrassment seeped in as it teased the edge of his slickly coated valve, still open and now a little cold. Sunstreaker fidgeted. Thundercracker paused in his ministrations. "Too much?"

"Give me a few? I... How'd you do that?" Sunstreaker asked in a mumble. "You weren't even touching anything _really_ good the first time."

"A mech's processor is the most sensitive interfacing tool he owns. You were enjoying the situation," Thundercracker said. "You overloaded yourself."

Sunstreaker frowned skeptically at him. Thundercracker chuckled back, and his hand resumed its stroking through the mess they had made around his array. Sunstreaker shivered, watching, as the big, dark thumb circled close to the anterior node without touching it. Sunstreaker reached down, flatly ignoring the way his hand trembled, and moved Thundercracker's hand over his open valve.

"Do you want me again? The cuffs...?" Thundercracker cupped his hand over Sunstreaker's bared valve, warming it.

"No... Yes?" Sunstreaker hesitated. If they were going to do this, he would have to stop feeling embarrassed. Thundercracker's smile broadened. The pleased expression made his array heat on its own. "Nothing you could chain me to here...? You said."

"Sunstreaker, speak to me plainly," Thundercracker commanded.

"I want you in me, again. And I don't wanna eat your bed cover," Sunstreaker managed to whisper. "I want you to cuff me again, hold me down, and ride me so I'll feel it next week."

"I...see. If your shoulders are up to it, I can always bind your hands behind your back. If you rest on your front, it won't be a great strain." Thundercracker's palm rubbed over the node, making it hard to think. "You can face to the side to avoid eating my bed. That strong chest should provide enough space."

"Please," Sunstreaker whispered.

"Can I have your pedes over the side? That would put you a good height to be taken from the back." Sunstreaker shivered, hands tightening on Thundercracker's as his body told his mind exactly how good that sounded. Thundercracker shifted to kneel beside him, and cupped his chin with his freed hand. "Are you sore? I do not want to hurt you."

"No. I was just...uncomfortable. I wanna be sore. I want you to make me..." Sunstreaker looked down, knowing he trembled, and that he was entirely too excited. "You could _make_ me take it again."

"Force you? I could. I could ignore your cries for help and mercy," the seeker purred. Bright red optics darkened on Sunstreaker's face, studying him. "Do you remember your word, Sunstreaker?"

"Yes, sir," Sunstreaker said. He did _not_ squeak. "I say 'stop' if it's too much."

"Very good," the flier rumbled. The hand stroking his valve suddenly pushed hard against that node. Sunstreaker gasped and jumped as his body tightened in pleasure. Next the seeker reached to flip Sunstreaker over. Thundercracker's weight came down on his back, pinning him, as the seeker moved to catch his hands.

Excitement raced along his circuits as he struggled against Thundercracker's grip. He could feel the mech's spike pressed to his thigh. Thundercracker carefully twisted his arms back into place without hurting him.

Sunstreaker shook as the seeker grasped his hips and tugged him to the edge of the bed. The bed's design had been intended for the slightly taller seeker; Sunstreaker's pedes just barely balanced on the floor. He felt Thundercracker's hands gliding over his aft, and he whined and twisted on the bed. The seeker's hands wrapped around his thighs, parting them, and Thundercracker pushed his spike inside Sunstreaker with no warning, hilting himself in one smooth, undeniable thrust.

The yellow twin keened as Thundercracker began to work in and out. Wide hands clutched his hips in a strong grip. Sunstreaker realized Thundercracker increased his pace quickly, giving the grounder exactly what he had been asked for. The hard, fast pace touched every sensor. Fresh lubricant didn't quite ease the passage enough, and Sunstreaker moaned his pleasure into the bed, riding the knife edge of a hard overload. Somehow, he found the processor power to speak, "Please, sir!"

One hand left his hip to fall on his back, pushing him into the bed. The flier's rhythm strengthened, sharpened, and Sunstreaker overloaded with a sound he would never call a scream.

Bucking his hips back on the thick spike driving his body to wave after wave of aftershock, Sunstreaker whined and begged until he felt the hot, hot rush of Thundercracker's pleasure filling him. Sunstreaker arched up against the hand pushing him down. Another intense overload slammed through him, vision dimming, as the seeker drew it out for him. This time, he flew seemingly forever.

Sunstreaker went strutless in the aftermath. Thundercracker pulled free unsteadily. His hands shook against Sunstreaker's as he released the cuffs and helped Sunstreaker slowly bring his arms around. The seeker pulled the warming mesh over them both as he dropped on his back beside Sunstreaker. The yellow twin cradled himself against the seeker's side. Thundercracker's arm wrapped around him tightly. "Sunstreaker?"

Sunstreaker's valve truly ached now. Sitting would hurt. Sunstreaker shuddered, rubbing his shoulders. He pressed into Thundercracker's side, still shaking in reaction, and rested his chin on the broad chest under him. His voice cracked when he tried to answer. Finally, in an uneven whisper Sunstreaker said, "I'm fine. Thank you."

"I need to ask--do you enjoy pain?" Thundercracker asked carefully.

Sunstreaker shook his head and struggled to explain. It was easier to stare at Thundercracker's chest plate, but the seeker cupped his chin and lifted. Sunstreaker managed to get out a garbled response, "No. I... You want me."

"Then your request wasn't about humiliation, either? I do not enjoy either in play, myself." Thundercracker stroked his jaw.

Sunstreaker shook his head. "No. I don't... I don't want that."

"I think I understand, then. Skywarp was also very insecure, at first. Until we bonded," Thundercracker said quietly. "You want to feel it. To make this real."

Hiding his face against the seeker's chest, Sunstreaker nodded. The flier made a soothing noise, and Sunstreaker felt a hand stroke over his spinal housing, gentle and firm. The golden twin relaxed against Thundercracker, actually rather enjoying the sticky mess between his thighs, and definitely liking the throbbing ache. Best of the morning, he liked the seeker's possessive hold. It felt almost as good as Sideswipe's.

"Skywarp and your brother are back. Do you want to clean up and see them?" Thundercracker asked, some time later with an amused glance toward his door. His trine partner must have commed him.

Sunstreaker shuddered, knowing he would feel the ache more if he moved. He wanted Sideswipe, though. "Yeah. And I'm hungry."

"Lie back and open yourself," Thundercracker commanded. Sunstreaker gave him a look, but he decided against arguing. As Thundercracker sat up and pushed the warming mesh off of them, Sunstreaker climbed back onto the bed and obeyed the seeker. Like with the cuffs, he felt vulnerable with the mech between his legs. Thundercracker got a bottle of gentle cleaner and a small towel from his bedside table. After applying the cleaner to the towel, Thundercracker wiped it over his open array very, very lightly. When Sunstreaker winced, he murmured, "I am sorry that I hurt you."

"That doesn't really hurt. Just aches. And that stuff stings a little," Sunstreaker shivered as the soft cloth pressed into the folds of the protective membrane. His sensors were too raw for him to enjoy it. "I...asked. I wanna feel it. And it was good."

"Mm. I'll keep that in mind. I will concede this, but any more extreme pain play is not something that I get any pleasure from," Thundercracker replied, finishing his thorough cleaning of Sunstreaker's intimate parts. "Close. And I do not like to degrade my partners."

"Yes, sir," Sunstreaker said. Thundercracker paused to stroke his chin, to his confusion. After, he sat to clean himself. "I...just wanted to feel it. That you...wanted me."

"That I can give you. Can you walk, Sunstreaker? I need to introduce both of you to the staff today as well. You will be their superiors when we have finished training you." Thundercracker stood and held out a hand. Still unsteady, Sunstreaker took it and got to his pedes. His closed valve throbbed, and Sunstreaker shivered in pleasure. "Sunstreaker?"

"Thank you, sir," Sunstreaker mumbled.

Thundercracker lifted his chin again to make Sunstreaker meet his gaze. Amusement colored the seeker's voice. "You will learn to speak plainly eventually. Come on, then. Let's see the others. Skywarp says he found something for you and your brother to share. When you are not so sore..."


	4. Snack Time

Thundercracker could spout all he wanted about Skywarp's lack of self-restraint. When Sunstreaker sat down _real_ careful on the sectional, Skywarp looked at the other seeker slyly. Skywarp hadn't even had a turn with one of them, and Thundercracker was breaking the toys. How was that for restraint?

Sideswipe glared. Thundercracker slipped a hand under Sunstreaker's chin, lifting as he bent over the back of the sectional to kiss the golden twin gently. Sunstreaker accepted Thundercracker's kiss with a muted shiver, and Sideswipe relaxed. Glancing at Thundercracker with a faint smirk, Sideswipe bent over his brother next. The red grounder pressed hard and deep as if reclaiming Sunstreaker. Skywarp had to override the release command prompt for his spike, and the bags, forgotten, tumbled to the floor.

Thundercracker watched with more lazy interest than Skywarp; _he_ had been sated, after all. If Skywarp were honest, Sunstreaker looked less interested than willing to indulge his brother. The golden twin relaxed under Sideswipe's hands, quietly obedient. But Skywarp wanted them--wanted them both.

Thundercracker leaned a hip on the sectional. "Sunstreaker did say that he was hungry, Sideswipe."

"Hmm." Sideswipe straightened and ran a thumb over Sunstreaker's lips. The pliable dermal alloy had roughened now, and Sideswipe looked thoughtful. "You hurt him."

"I'm right here, Si," Sunstreaker muttered irritably.

"You have nothing to be concerned about, Sideswipe. I do not enjoy causing others' pain, and Sunstreaker has said that he would not ask for anything more extreme," Thundercracker replied, stroking one of Sunstreaker's audial fairings.

Skywarp watched Sideswipe relax as Sunstreaker leaned into the touch. Keeping an optic on Thundercracker, Sideswipe picked up the bags. "Fine. Skywarp took me shopping. Said you'd arrange for us to get comm systems, Thundercracker."

"So you really don't have one? I'll make an appointment for next week. By that time, I'll have your household credit chips ready, so you can access the accounts. As I told Sunstreaker, you both will be in charge of the staff as well as take over the household management."

"Huh. Okay. That kinda sounds like fun," Sideswipe said. "So there more plans for today than fraggin'?"

Skywarp snickered. Thundercracker glanced at him, optic ridge arched, then nodded to Sideswipe. "Training should begin soon, so I want to introduce you to the staff today. Some of the elder members can help you, as you begin. Since Sunstreaker said he was hungry, I thought I could take you down to the fourth level of our suite. While there's a service up here, the staff is there."

"Okay. This one's for you, Sun." Sideswipe murmured to his brother, handing him first one bag, then another. "And this can go in our room with it. S'ours."

"What is it?" Sunstreaker asked, opening the first for a peek.

"What’d ya call that one?" Sideswipe asked Skywarp.

"A strap-on. I knew a mech from Altihex, once, that swore by knockin' valve or eatin' treats, too, but I figured you two might wanna give this a shot," Skywarp said, tapping the second bag. "And some big toys. Thundercracker had an idea, before, 'bout sharin'. Seein' Star--and apparently Thunder--left you two a little sore, maybe those'll help. Primus knows, it sounded like fun."

Sunstreaker eyed Skywarp. Sideswipe snickered, "Thundercracker wants to see if one of us can take two of them, remember? Skywarp said he thought the toys would help stretch things out."

"Valves are meant to. I mean, we’re all different sizes," Sunstreaker responded thoughtfully. He looked in at the contents of the bag, then looked at the seekers. "And sparklings were in the contract, too."

"Starscream and I need heirs. Skywarp would like one, too." Thundercracker reached down and patted Sunstreaker's side.

"Told Thunder you're hungry, right?" Skywarp asked the gold twin while he threw an arm over Sideswipe's shoulders. Skywarp grunted when the red grounder elbowed him. Then he leaned in and licked an audial horn. Sideswipe purred and leaned into him. Then Skywarp said, "Oh, Thunder, Star said he decided he's not gonna put them in the guest room. Gonna put them in the master suite we aren't really sharin' no more. He said he was still givin' you the storage room next to his office, though."

"That sounds better. Why don't you put these in your room? All the bags are for them, Sky? The master suite is the double doors off the main hall. The aerie lift is that way," Thundercracker said, pointing in each direction. "Starscream's home office is on the second level. The third level is storage. I'll comm the staff to meet us in the kitchen on the fourth level."

Sunstreaker stood up with the bags. Sideswipe chuckled and shook off Skywarp, "All right. Back in a minute."

Skywarp waited until they disappeared behind the door to poke Thundercracker. "Mech, I thought you said I was rough-edged."

"He asked for the second round, Sky. And I haven't had a good partner since I bonded to you two. I got a little carried away." Thundercracker glared.

"Right," Skywarp snorted. "Just don't wanna share."

"You know I have a family visit this evening, and Star said he would be very late tonight. You can have both all night. Just use extra lubricant and go slowly, if you decide to spike Sunstreaker," Thundercracker countered. "He is a good partner. And you heard Starscream about Sideswipe this morning."

"Yeah. I'm gonna have fun without you two," Skywarp grinned.

"I'm sure you will," Thundercracker said, shaking his head.

Sideswipe had wrapped himself around Sunstreaker when the twins returned. Skywarp felt a little bit disappointed that they weren't kissing, but the easy comfort they shared felt better, in a way. Homey.

Thundercracker lead them all down to the kitchen. Skywarp dropped his aft on a stool at Trailbreaker's bar while that worthy finished making his favorite gummy strips. Skywarp put a hand out to sneak a gummy, and Trailbreaker smacked it with his spoon, grinning. The staff, gathered by Thundercracker's earlier comm, allowed a couple of snickers at his expense to rise from their ranks.

Like most noble seeker households, not one seeker worked on the staff. Funny as it was, in a city of the flighted, ground frames populated the staff positions. Coming from poverty, it was a conundrum that had stumped Skywarp before; Sideswipe had been right when he claimed no one would hire them. Poor seekers wouldn't hire grounders. Rich seekers _only_ hired grounders.

Thundercracker had called him a bully, early in their courtship, for his foul mouth and blunt attitude with the staff. If Starscream hadn't picked him as third, Skywarp would have been one of those keeping Sideswipe out. But there was Thundercracker, keeping them down, however kind he acted about it. Their staff was happy, at least. And from his own experience, he knew the twins had no better options. Not in Vos, and likely not in Kaon, either.

Starscream said credit didn't buy happiness. Skywarp didn't tell him that he was an idiot. Credit bought _everything_.

Sideswipe paid close attention as Thundercracker introduced the twins to the staff. Under the knowing looks, Sideswipe straightened up. Tall for a grounder, he loomed over everyone but Hardshell, the insecticon groundskeeper. That mech only cared about the crystal garden on the roof and his daily list of repairs, not anyone's fragging habits. Trailbreaker had come into the household with Starscream, so he only offered Sunstreaker a warm smile and first taste of the gummy treats as that mech sat beside Skywarp.

Much later in the evening, after Thundercracker had left to visit his family, Skywarp lured Sideswipe into his bedroom. Sunstreaker had followed after a long pause and a nudge from Starscream. Their glorious leader had come home earlier than expected, but he looked worn out. Between that trip to Kaon and all the slag at the university _and_ fragging Sideswipe before work that morning, Skywarp didn't blame him.

So, keeping Sideswipe flush to his body, the seeker thoroughly explored the red twin's mouth. When he finally broke the kiss, Skywarp glanced back to grin at Sunstreaker. The yellow-gold twin leaned against Skywarp's door, watching them. Skywarp pushed the red twin down on his bed, still pleased with himself. Skywarp really looked forward to watching the two play together much, much more extensively tonight.

Kneeling on the floor between Sideswipe's legs and pushing brilliantly white knees apart, Skywarp vented happily. Sideswipe had already bared the treasure for him. Skywarp would never admit it to Thundercracker or Starscream, but the real reason _Skywarp_ didn't want to open up lay, in singular, in front of him. He loved valves--standard fare or loaded with crazy mods.

But most of all, he loved diving into them. He wanted them to wear his transfluid because he wanted to wear their lubricant. All over everybody involved. But society, stupid fragging high society, had to tell the high and snooty it wasn't _done_ to bare the bottom half of an array. They fragged up interfacing like everything else. Instead of it just being fun and games, it became all about who was on 'top'. As if the guy spiking was always on top. As if he always had control. Clearly, they had never been to a space port.

Skywarp still had fond memories of one mech in Iacon. Red and blue, and he had ridden Skywarp's spike until the seeker thought they would fall _through_ the floor with Skywarp happily crushed under him. Skywarp certainly hadn't been in charge then, but that one night stand still lived in Skywarp's self-service fantasies.

In the here and now, Skywarp could do what he wanted. Thundercracker wouldn't care that he wanted to eat as much as be eaten. And a happy bed partner certainly wouldn't tattle.

Looking at Sideswipe's waiting valve, Skywarp grinned. Just inside the rim, the bunched protective membrane, black as the plating around it, glistened with silvery lubricant. That membrane felt so good on a spike, clinging wetly as mechs fragged. It felt just as good to lick and kiss the soft, plush folds. Skywarp put his hands on Sideswipe's thighs, stroking down toward his goal. Resting his hands on Sideswipe's pelvic plating, Skywarp rubbed the sensitive line of rim and membrane, listening to Sideswipe's moan. Skywarp's grin turned sly. "Like that, huh?"

"I thought you wanted me to go down on you, y'know," Sideswipe replied. "Said you liked to see your junk on mech's faces."

"It's not junk. And you will. But I haven't had a tasty treat in a while. An' I'm hungry." Skywarp laughed as Sideswipe tossed a pillow at the seeker, snickering himself. "Aw, c'mon. You're a nice, savory meal for me. An' look at you. Spread out an' ready for dinner. Be a shame to let it get cold, right?"

"Primus, that's hokey," Sideswipe laughed. Skywarp got to watch Sideswipe's valve clench on nothing through the bunched membrane when he rubbed the outlying edge. And he got to enjoy the grounder's happiness.

Glancing at Sunstreaker, Skywarp took note of the darkened optics, and the fingers gently brushing the panel over his own sore array. Skywarp rubbed his thumbs higher, teasing through the lubricant, to reveal the tiny main nodule buried at the apex of Sideswipe's valve with its web of ancillary filaments. Colored as darkly black as the pelvic plating or membrane but set against the bright red of the dermas itself, the stark, vivid coloration of Sideswipe's unmodded equipment was truly beautiful. He leaned in and swiped a lick across the membrane, teasing the sensory filaments strewn throughout it. Sideswipe hissed and grabbed Skywarp's head instead of throwing another pillow. "Do that again."

Skywarp chuckled, low and groaning. He vented over Sideswipe's spread valve and enjoyed the red twin's answering groan. Obligingly, the seeker licked Sideswipe again. Adjusting his angle, Skywarp swiped across the length of rim and membrane. Sideswipe wiggled on the seeker's bed, making the best noises Skywarp had heard for a long time now. Skywarp rewarded him with another lick.

"He likes that," Sunstreaker's soft voice said from Skywarp's door, "but he gets real impatient. Don't let him rush you."

Skywarp licked across Sideswipe's membrane one more time, then looked up at the mech's brother. Sunstreaker's optics had gone as dark as Sideswipe's. His mouth curved up in a wicked smile; Sideswipe cursed. "Frag you, Sun. Sky, you get back down there and finish what you started."

"Aw, he's kinda cute when he's mad, ain't he? Gonna join us? If Thunder didn't finish you for the night, that is." Skywarp grinned at Sunstreaker before putting his mouth back to work on Sideswipe's valve. He nuzzled his face into the membrane. Sideswipe's thighs quivered on either side of Skywarp's head, and he heard tense cables creak.

"Thinking' about it. Could go recharge, though, in that big bed you guys used to share," Sunstreaker said. Skywarp looked at him over his brother's thigh. Then Sunstreaker's optics slid over his brother's body.

"Are you?" Grinning, Skywarp turned back to his self-appointed task and spread Sideswipe's membrane with his thumbs and pressed his lips to the dermas below the needy sensory node. He felt Sideswipe's valve clench taut beneath his mouth, telling him how very excited the red mech was. Sideswipe sucked in a harsh vent; he expelled it in a groan of the seeker's name.

Skywarp nuzzled the wet folds as soft steps crossed the room. Hands pressed flat to his wings and ran over them in long firm strokes that made his sensor net glow with pleasure. Skywarp licked the full length of Sideswipe's bared valve, just brushing the anterior node and getting a good taste of the mech. Sideswipe groaned. The grounder's hands tightened on his head for a second before Sideswipe lightened his grip again. "C'mon, do that again."

"Pushy," Skywarp murmured into Sideswipe's valve. The grounder's hands flexed on Skywarp's head once more, when the seeker suckled at the node.

"He is," Sunstreaker agreed. While Skywarp continued to nuzzle and lap at Sideswipe, the golden twin began to trace light patterns down the seeker's wings. Skywarp encouraged him to linger by angling them into his touch.

When Sunstreaker reached Skywarp's waist, he leaned forward, pressing himself against Skywarp's body. The yellow-gold twin moved his hands around to Skywarp's front. Then his hands slid down, cupping over the seeker's heated array. Gasping, Skywarp released his spike into Sunstreaker's hold. "There we go. Gotta thank you, y'know."

"Oh?" Skywarp managed as Sunstreaker traced a line down the length of Skywarp's spike.

Sideswipe patted his cheek. "Don't stop, Sky."

"Uh huh," Sunstreaker murmured in Skywarp's audial as the seeker resumed his attention to Sideswipe's valve. "I think we should get on the bed, Si."

"Slaggit, I don't want him to stop," Sideswipe moaned. Then he pushed Skywarp back. The seeker wondered, faintly, when he had lost control of the situation. He wasn't concerned; just curious. Sideswipe grinned and ran a finger through the lubricant on his face. Both twins pushed and pulled up Skywarp between them on the bed.

They pushed Skywarp over to lie on his back. The expensive foam cradled him, and they looked at each other. Skywarp felt oddly left out as both glanced from his hard spike to his wet face. Sideswipe snickered, and Skywarp _knew_ they were thinking at each other. Then Sideswipe turned to lie down beside him. Backside up toward, but angled away from, Skywarp and Sunstreaker, Sideswipe threw a leg over Skywarp's waist. It opened his valve for display but angled away, and the seeker groaned. Twisting himself just a little, Sideswipe bent down over Skywarp's spike. Then the devious grounder licked along the length of Skywarp's spike like it was a treat.

"Holy Primus!"

"Naw, just me," Sideswipe vented over the seeker's spike. Sunstreaker snickered and straddled Skywarp's face. Skywarp groaned happily then applied his mouth to Sunstreaker's bared valve.

The swollen membrane shone a lighter gold against the rim. When Skywarp parted it with his attention, he found a dark red nodule with fainter red web of filament sensors set against the soft dermas that faded to silver from the outer gold. Absurdly, that red node made Skywarp think of buttons. So he pressed it with his lips before closing his lips around it. Sunstreaker hissed and delivered an open smack to the side of his chest plate. "I'm sore. You want this, don't hurt me."

Skywarp felt Sideswipe snicker over him, and the mouth teasing his spike closed around the head. The seeker moaned, and above him, Sunstreaker shivered. Skywarp applied his full attention on Sunstreaker's valve, gently rubbing and licking. Above Skywarp's face, Sunstreaker shifted, leaning down and over the seeker's side. Skywarp knew when he'd begun to work his brother's valve; Sideswipe first moaned, and then he nearly swallowed the seeker's spike.

"Oh, Primus," he mumbled--groaned--against Sunstreaker. The golden twin shuddered and pressed himself down. The seeker wiggled and got his arms free. He grabbed Sunstreaker's hips, holding the gold mech still for Skywarp's attentions. While Sideswipe ran fingers along the sensory ridge of the seeker's spike, the seeker finally licked over the clenching valve opening. Skywarp teased up inside Sunstreaker then slide his mouth back to the pulsing node.

Skywarp loved the way they tasted.

Sideswipe pressed his lips in firmly around the head, then slowly sunk Skywarp's spike deep into his mouth again, holding what didn't quite fit. Up and down, like the attention Skywarp gave Sunstreaker. Skywarp lost track of time as he felt his excitement and charge slowly peaking. So _close_. Skywarp's hands clenched on Sunstreaker's hips, and Skywarp tried not to thrust up into Sideswipe's mouth, and the seeker heard Sunstreaker hiss. Sideswipe responded by moaning.

That, finally, did Skywarp in. He felt Sideswipe's mouth leave his spike as he overloaded. Lips and tongue played around the head, interrupting and catching the seeker's transfluid. The yellow-gold twin shivered over the seeker, riding the edge of overload, but Sunstreaker shoved Skywarp's hands off his hips. Sunstreaker managed to climb off Skywarp's face, somehow, and Sideswipe turned and crawled up the seeker's body.

With his face still coated in the twin's combined, slick fluids, and Sideswipe's covered in _his_ transfluid, Skywarp kissed the red twin hard. He wrapped his arms around Sideswipe, pulling the red grounder down for more. Skywarp desperately wished he could get it up again right now. Sideswipe snickered and worked his hands between them, pushing hard to make space. "No, you popped first. Now it's our turn. But you can _watch_."

Skywarp whined and tried to sit up, but Sideswipe shoved him back down. "Stay. Hands to yourself."

Sideswipe climbed off Skywarp, stroking down the seeker's side. The red twin put a hand on his brother's chest and gently pushed Sunstreaker down. Sideswipe drew patterns over Sunstreaker's body. He chuckled, "You got him all worked up, y'know. He won't take much at all."

"Slagger," Sunstreaker muttered. Then he gasped as Sideswipe cupped a hand over his valve, sliding in the thick lubricant. Skywarp sat up for a better view. Sideswipe gave him a sly grin but let him up anyway.

Sideswipe moved his hand back and forth, slowly parting the membrane to rub lightly over sore, excited sensors. Sunstreaker rolled his hips into his brother's hand, driving the touch deeper. Curling his fingers a little more, Sideswipe pushed his fingers slowly inside the valve he teased. Sunstreaker arched up, tightly wound, and Skywarp listened to him plead.

Sideswipe's dark smirk widened, his mouth still marked with the seeker's transfluid. Skywarp remembered that dock worker, and his HUD lit up with arousal. His spike pressurized again, begging for his attention.

Sideswipe leaned down and kissed his brother's valve. Sunstreaker's hands dug into the bed clothes, and his legs widened. Sideswipe's soft touches and light presses of denta wound Sunstreaker tighter. Lifting himself, Sideswipe looked over his shoulder at Skywarp.

"Ready to play with us again already? You want him to suck you dry?" Sideswipe asked softly, "Or you wanna sink into him? He's pretty sore, y'know. I got a better idea."

"No," Skywarp said with a groan. He reached for his own spike. "I wanna frag you while you get him off. Watch you kiss him with me and him all over your face..."

Chuckling, Sideswipe stretched out over his brother. Sunstreaker caught Sideswipe's mouth, invading it desperately. Sideswipe straddled one golden leg, and he pushed his knee under Sunstreaker's aft. It lifted the yellow-gold twin, spreading him open for Skywarp to watch Sideswipe pump and curl his fingers in that wet, wet valve.

"Primus," Skywarp vented. Then he crawled over to join the twins fragging on his bed. Sideswipe shuddered with pleasure as the seeker lined his spike up and entered the clenching valve from behind.

Sunstreaker held Sideswipe tightly and meet Skywarp's optics as the seeker set a hard pace. Sideswipe groaned, bending to catch his brother's mouth. The seeker wrapped his own hand around Sideswipe's busy hand, feeling how Sideswipe worked inside Sunstreaker's valve.

Both twins venting hard and fast beneath him, Skywarp wasn't surprised Sideswipe finally stopped fingering Sunstreaker to balance himself for Skywarp's thrusts. The seeker took over, fragging both, but he knew he wasn't as gentle.

Skywarp heard the muffled click of sliding panels. The glow of spark light leaked between them, and this had to be the hottest thing Skywarp had ever been part of. Overload hit both twins, running sparks of released charge up and down their frames. Both soaking wet valves spasmed on his spike and fingers. Skywarp drove into Sideswipe's body, chasing his own release.

It rocked him from spike to spark to processor, and he shouted into Sideswipe's back, every strut in his body shaking in pleasure. Mindful of his weight, Skywarp pulled free of both brothers and flopped face-first on his bed.

Skywarp felt the tingle of afterglow all over. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker curled up beside him--half on top of him. Skywarp looked down at them. They were beautiful and perfect for the trine. Skywarp laughed softly, "I don't think I can move."

"Bed's wet," Sideswipe mumbled back. "And we're gonna be sticky."

"I'll wash you later?" Skywarp offered. He curled an arm around the closer twin, Sunstreaker, and nuzzled an audial faring. Sunstreaker's optics closed, and the yellow twin hesitantly snuggled closer.

"Yeah," Sideswipe said after a moment. "Recharge now. Clean later."

"That's the spirit. C'mere," Skywarp said. In answer, Sideswipe stretched out over Skywarp's back, arms spread over the seeker's wings. Skywarp closed his optics, content between the pair of grounders.

Skywarp would have to do this again. After a nap.


	5. Play Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank the wonderful eerian sadow for looking this over to make sure I'm still presenting this correctly. Any mistakes left in are completely mine.

After inspecting the hook system so recently installed in the ceiling, Thundercracker turned to the cabinet. Skywarp called it the toy box. Checking the full length of his restraints had always been a meditative process for Thundercracker. Before each use and after; if a mech placed such trust in him, he intended to be worthy of it. The glossy black rope held firm with each tug. It remained smooth to touch from one end to the other. The red and white lengths he had been unable to resist purchasing as well, held to the same standard. This afternoon, however, he left those packed into their cases.

He wanted to work Sunstreaker up slowly. Patience had not been either twin's strong point. They responded well to rewards, though, and beyond that they more than made up for that minor failing in other ways. Both had begun to fit into their places very well. Starscream had hired a music tutor for Sideswipe. The outgoing young mech had taken charge of the household servants quickly and smoothly. He had also proven to have a good head for numbers. Thundercracker hoped Sideswipe could take over the basic finances soon, freeing more of his time.

Sunstreaker had taken a random suggestion from Skywarp, and now used a gifted datapad to sketch. For a young mech that had never had the opportunity before, he did rather well. The dark blue seeker had also watched the grounder begin to use the paint programs. Thundercracker had decided to buy physical tools for Sunstreaker to dabble with; he thought it would make Sunstreaker very happy. He believed the pair would more than earn their place; where Skywarp barely cared enough to pass in real society, the twins wanted everything that world might offer to them.

Privately, Thundercracker knew he enjoyed Sunstreaker too much to give the mech up now, anyway. And Sideswipe had certainly charmed everyone. Including himself, Thundercracker thought fondly.

Coiling the inspected rope and placing it in the center of the bed, Thundercracker also looked over the toy selection Skywarp had purchased. Gizmos, he thought dismissively. But Skywarp enjoyed them--or enjoyed owning them. Starscream had simply snorted, reminding them that he was the normal one. Thundercracker had still seen him eyeing one or two.

Sideswipe had not cared over much for the restraints although he had certainly enjoyed the interface. Sunstreaker didn't like Skywarp's rough handling scuffing his finish in spite of appreciating Skywarp's humor. Both liked Starscream very well, in or out of bed, and Thundercracker hardly felt surprised. Starscream's pride actually made him a good lover. Their egotistical leader suffered when his partners didn't overload. And he had been the one to point out that they had brought the twins in as part of their family. Thundercracker felt pleased with the overall results. Hetaira had to fill many roles. His own carrier had said it had taken nearly a century for Thundercracker's natal trine to find a decent match in their hetaira.

Thinking carefully, he selected a simple, molded piece. Not large and more flexible than a real spike, he smiled to himself as he inspected it. After cleaning the toy, he put it down in the center of the coiled rope. He also selected a long rod with large, padded cuffs at either end to place just below the coil.

Satisfied with his choices, Thundercracker set out the rest of his plans. He set a glass beside the high grade decanter on the bedside table. He had no plans to offer Sunstreaker any intoxicants beforehand, but he might like them afterward. Two perfectly ordinary servings had been deposited in the drawer, however, to be safe. He would not let his own enthusiasm make this less than it could be.

The seeker placed soft, folded cloths beside the decanter. A hesitant voice interrupted him, "I lost track of time. Sorry, sir. How long've you been waiting?"

Thundercracker looked up, smiling, and gestured Sunstreaker inside. The young mech relaxed and drifted to him. Thundercracker pulled two capped jars from the drawer. "I haven't. I have been setting up the evening's entertainment."

Sunstreaker shivered. The unconscious movement pleased Thundercracker immensely. "I, uh, see you got the rope you wanted, sir."

"I have three lengths, actually, but I only want to use one tonight. I want to bind your arms again," Thundercracker said. He traced Sunstreaker's arm from shoulder to wrist. Catching the other hand as well, Thundercracker turned them up so he could stroke his thumbs over bright gold wrists. "The rope work will cover the length of your arms, over your shoulders, and it will decorate your torso. You will not be able to move without my help. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir. I... I did like the cuffs." Sunstreaker did not _like_ to vocalize his likes and dislikes in interfacing, but he obeyed Thundercracker's insistence.

"Very good," the seeker approved. He leaned down and kissed Sunstreaker's audial fairings. "I also intend to use a bar to keep your knees spread and a toy to help you along."

His anticipation sharpened as Sunstreaker's expression changed with his imaginings. The grounder swallowed. "Sir. I...think I'll like that."

"Good." Thundercracker stepped closer, enjoying Sunstreaker's involuntary shiver, and more, the way he pressed closer. "We do need to discuss words first."

"Huh? I mean, what? Sir, I thought..."

Thundercracker chuckled, a little rueful. "Words. I was a bit hasty last time. If you truly enjoy that type of play, it would be best for you to use another word."

"Oh." Sunstreaker cycled his optics, thinking. Then, "So you'll know when I mean it? Not just...play acting."

"Exactly. I don't want to hurt you."

Sunstreaker leaned forward and buried his face against Thundercracker's spark chamber. "I liked being hurt. A little, anyway. But I... I get what you mean. Um... I pick again?"

"Yes. It's your word." Thundercracker smoothed a hand down Sunstreaker's back.

"Okay. Um. If...if I'm calling you 'sir' when we...play... How about your name?"

It was Thundercracker's turn to cycle his optics. "My name?"

"It'd get your attention, right?" Sunstreaker looked up, rocking on his pedes to trail a kiss down the ridge of Thundercracker's cheek. "Tell you I need you and not an overload."

"You could end up just shouting it in pleasure," Thundercracker said dryly.

"Sure. If I'm that clear," Sunstreaker smirked.

"I would prefer something else."

"I dunno. I wasn't thinking very clearly last time. If it's the same this time... Or next time. Look, I... It's supposed to stop everything because I don't feel safe, right? Only Sideswipe's ever made me feel safe, before, but I did with you. You kept asking if I was okay, y'know? You eased up when I asked. I could start callin' for my brother or I can call you. But that's what I'll remember if I am scared."

Thundercracker cycled his optics slowly; he wasn't sure how to feel about that. Thundercracker didn't think his last play partner had offered him that level of trust, but his partner had been much more experienced. He wanted to be worth this offering. "I see. My name, then. If that does not work out, we will revisit this conversation. Force...?"

Sunstreaker looked down at the bed and the implements on it. Then shook his head. "Nah. I think I wanna try it the way you want it. I did... I liked the last time. With the cuffs."

"You liked being spread and taken on my desk? As much as you enjoyed the play on my bed?" Thundercracker guided Sunstreaker to the bed, optics narrowed in thought. There, he helped the grounder to kneel in the middle beneath one of the hooks. "Sunstreaker?"

"Huh? Oh. Yes, sir. I... I liked it very much." Sunstreaker bit the soft dermas of his lips looking at the rope. His gaze lifted when Thundercracker cupped his jaw and stroked a thumb over his lips.

"I need you to stay very still and relaxed, Sun." The seeker felt pleasure stir as the lovely mech obeyed him. Picking up the rope, Thundercracker sat on the bed behind Sunstreaker and pulled the grounder's hands together behind him.

After he looped the rope just above Sunstreaker's wrists, Sunstreaker had tensed. The seeker waited until the grounder vented and visibly relaxed his body. Thundercracker petted down the length of the lovely mech's back. 

The seeker took his time with the first knot; he wanted to be able to release Sunstreaker's hands quickly, if needed. Moving slowly, the seeker wove the soft rope up the mech's arms. He would have Sunstreaker bend forward later, so he had planned his work carefully. He remembered that Sunstreaker hadn't liked the prospect of eating blankets.

Thundercracker formed black diamond patterns against Sunstreaker's golden plating. Carefully leaving the merger between Sunstreaker's shoulders loose, Thundercracker worked a simpler Y structure down the ground frame's torso, caressing as he went. Sunstreaker had closed his optics, quietly trying to still his shivering.

As Thundercracker reached the mech's hips, Sunstreaker's interface panel recessed. Glancing down, Thundercracker appreciated the bared, ready valve. Sunstreaker's dark silvery lubricant complimented the lighter silver and gold of the whole, and it brought a lovely contrast to the darker red of his sensory inlay. Chuckling, Thundercracker freed a hand to stroke Sunstreaker's bound side. "Very good. I need that open. Stay still, Sunstreaker. And relaxed."

"Sir," the grounder managed hoarsely. The mech tried so hard to obey, and Thundercracker was very pleased. Resuming his task, Thundercracker moved to the next phase of his pattern and moved both ends of the rope over the wet valve. Sunstreaker moaned, shuddering.

"Easy. We aren't finished."

"I might."

Thundercracker laughed softly. "Then it's good we have all afternoon."

"Primus," Sunstreaker mumbled. He shuddered as Thundercracker completed his work, weaving the ends firmly into the main work on Sunstreaker's torso, then up towards the loose stretch of rope near his shoulders. Stroking Sunstreaker's back, Thundercracker reached up, tapped the controls of the hook above them, and brought it down. The seeker slid it under the loose stretch.

"Just a little more. I am going to put the bar at your knees, Sun. Then I will put the toy in."

"Primus, just frag me already. Sir, please--"

"Sunstreaker."

The grounder sucked a harsh ventilation. The rope held his plating down, trapping his rising heat. Twisting in the rope and moaning when he realized he really was trapped, Sunstreaker turned his head to look back at Thundercracker. The grounder had to reset his vocalizer. "I want you. Sir, please. I want your spike."

Thundercracker stroked Sunstreaker's aft. "Very good, Sunstreaker. I much prefer when you're open about what you want. You will get my spike, I promise. Now spread your knees. Wider. Good. That's good. Stay steady--"

He moved to Sunstreaker's front to place the rod between his partner's knees. Closing the cuffs just above the relatively delicate joints, he then moved up to carefully inspect the mech's hips for signs of strain. Sunstreaker groaned, unable to do much more than shift in his bonds. Reassured that he had planned correctly for his partner's relative size, Thundercracker reached for the toy.

Thundercracker suspected the toy had been meant to slide into a table top setting, but the double layer of wide lips at its base would hold the rope at Sunstreaker's valve nicely. Inserting it would have been easier before, but he wanted to watch Sunstreaker's reaction. Optics dark with need, Sunstreaker looked on avidly as the seeker rubbed his fingers over the wet rope, then parted the slicked cables, Thundercracker gently probed the valve opening, shifting the rope in place over the anterior node, and enjoyed Sunstreaker's shuddery moan.

He pushed the toy in slowly. Its easy movement counterpointed Sunstreaker's needy shivers. Thundercracker smiled slowly as he set both cables of rope in opposite grooves, holding it in place. Both cables parted just over Sunstreaker's node, amplifying the stimulation. The grounder moaned, body trembling as it had before he had overloaded on Thundercracker's desk.

No, Thundercracker didn't want to do without this.

"You're doing very well, Sunstreaker. Now lean forward. Trust me, lover. I have you." Thundercracker watched the carefully constructed network of rope tighten slowly. Sunstreaker yelped as the cords pulled tighter over his valve, moving the toy inside him and rubbing his node. Sunstreaker groaned, wiggling his hips.

Thundercracker stilled him with a hand. Bent level in front of the seeker, Sunstreaker's body crackled with charge. Finally releasing his spike, he cupped the grounder's jaw. He stroked the mech's cheek ridge with his thumb. "You're beautiful like this, Sunstreaker. Wet, ready for me. All tied up like a gift. You still want my spike, don't you? Open your mouth."

Dangling in the harness of rope, arms bound behind him, knees spread, valve dripping thick lubricant to the bed below them, and Thundercracker's spike disappearing between his parted lips, Sunstreaker made a _lovely_ sight.

"You are doing so well, Sunstreaker." the seeker groaned as Sunstreaker worked his head up and down, rubbing the sensitive ridge underneath firmly. The grounder moaned around him, shifting against the rope. He couldn't quite take Thundercracker all the way inside his mouth, but he made up for it with his willingness to please. Sunstreaker moved his head as Thundercracker's hand on his chin directed. The mech lived for praise. "Lick, Sunstreaker. Good. So beautiful. Up -- Now kiss along it, there. Perfect. Close your lips around the head. Suck. Ah! Very nice."

The seeker petted Sunstreaker's audial fairings with a light touch. Then Thundercracker reached across Sunstreaker's back to brush over the rope and tease the plating beneath. Thundercracker could feel the tension in Sunstreaker's frame. It wouldn't take much, so he cupped the grounder's jaw again. "As much as you can, now. Suck until I overload, and swallow it."

Sunstreaker shivered, still trying to move his hips enough for the toy teasing his valve to set him off. The bound mech obeyed the seeker quickly, so eager to please. Thundercracker groaned when his release washed through him in a series of tripped breakers. Gripping Sunstreaker's shoulders, Thundercracker held them both still, and he shuddered with the feel of the grounder's mouth and intake working around his spike.

"So very beautiful, Sun," Thundercracker whispered. He moved his hand back to Sunstreaker's jaw, thumbing through the spill at the corners of the grounder's mouth. He eased Sunstreaker off of his spike and petted down the hot, shuddering frame. "You've been very good for me. Would you like to overload now?"

"Please, sir. Please frag me, please--" Sunstreaker begged through his staticky vocalizer. Thundercracker sat back on his heels, venting, as his systems calmed. Reaching over Sunstreaker's back, the seeker ran a hand firmly over the woven rope and hot plating. The grounder moaned, lowering his head to Thundercracker's lap. "Please. _Please_."

With more self-control than he thought he possessed, Thundercracker pushed Sunstreaker away and got himself off the bed. Sunstreaker twisted in his bonds, pleading, until Thundercracker rested a hand on his aft. The grounder went still, optics dark and wide, and shook. "You're almost there, Sunstreaker. Move like this--"

Thundercracker pushed Sunstreaker forward. Knees and hips flexed; the hook held steady, and the ropes shifted around Sunstreaker's body. The grounder moaned with the new friction traveling down the ropes. Not just up the small toy inside him, but across his torso and aft. Thundercracker shivered and continued to help rock Sunstreaker back and forth.

"You overload is a work of art, you know. The crawling lightning of released charge. Your gasping cries. And the way your valve, so wet and hot, feels around my spike. It's like sinking into the Well. Show me again, Sunstreaker. Let me feel it," Thundercracker purred, leaning over the bound mech. Watching Sunstreaker writhe had him ready to sink inside the grounder again. He remembered so clearly how that body had felt under and around him.

The lavish praise did the trick, just as it had the first time. Sunstreaker arched in his overload, head back, his frame twitching and seizing with sensation. Thundercracker ran his hand through the little sparks of released charge. Growling, he released his eager spike and climbed behind Sunstreaker's dangling body.

He remembered to toggle the hook's controls to lower Sunstreaker's upper body a bit more. It lifted his aft higher, and the move pulled a yelp from Sunstreaker as his body clenched in aftershock. Thundercracker worked the toy free of rope and valve with shaking hands, then, holding the paired rope open, he thrust inside Sunstreaker.

Sunstreaker shouted, thrashing in his bonds. His body burned around Thundercracker's spike. Grasping Sunstreaker's hips, the seeker thrust in hard and fast, chasing his own pleasure while the grounder under him cried out. He felt another overload building in his partner, even as the rope's added friction built his charge faster.

The seeker struggled to slow himself and wait for Sunstreaker's pleasure to come again. Thundercracker's body tensed, overload hitting him hard again. He kept moving to push Sunstreaker over the edge, until the grounder's cut-off scream of ecstasy burned into his memory.

Sunstreaker collapsed, strutless in the aftermath. Thundercracker pulled himself clear only to realize Sunstreaker had fallen into a soft reboot. Fumbling, Thundercracker held the rope at the mech's shoulders and released the hook. Purely predatory pleasure lit his circuits as he undid the ropes and removed the spreader bar from the unconscious mech.

He had never driven a partner offline before.

Thundercracker settled Sunstreaker comfortably on his back on the dry side of the bed. Kneeling near him, he used the cloths and gentle cleaning solution the seeker had set on the bedside table to clean Sunstreaker's face. Then he moved carefully around the mech's valve. The touch still made Sunstreaker stir uncomfortably. His optics booted up, and he groaned.

"Shh. Easy. I'm here, Sun." Thundercracker tossed the used cloths onto the table. He put a hand over the mech's spark. "How do you feel?"

"Mm. Run over. Wanna recharge." Sunstreaker mumbled. He curled around Thundercracker's knees, cycled his optics offline, and he hid his face on a clean stretch of Thundercracker's thigh. The seeker moved his hand to a fairing, stroking. Sunstreaker continued, "I like the ropes. I liked it better when you were in me."

"You didn't like the toy?" Thundercracker rubbed the audial fairing between thumb and forefinger. Then he turned his attention to cleaning himself.

A shudder passed the length of the grounder's frame. If anything, the mech curled tighter. "I did. Mechs are better."

Thundercracker looked down at Sunstreaker thoughtfully. "Would you like a toy better if your twin used it on you? Filled you with it? And himself? Since you do seem to like being filled from behind--there is a frame for that. I can tie you down, all spread open for him. Blindfolded, perhaps. Gagged? I have many things now."

Shivering, Sunstreaker rubbed his face against the seeker's thigh. "Yes, sir. I would... I would like that. I could suck you off again."

"Yes, you could," Thundercracker replied, rubbing the grounder's back. "I have high grade, if you want."

Snuggling closer, Sunstreaker shook his head awkwardly. "I wanna stay here. Tell me... Tell me I'm beautiful again?"

"You are very beautiful, Sunstreaker. I love the way your body throws itself into overload. I most definitely enjoy how your mind responds to any encouragement. You take praise like caresses," Thundercracker said as he pet the grounder's frame slowly. "It's quite a sight to watch you overload just from getting the rewards you have earned."

He suspected that Sunstreaker's desire for an aching valve stemmed from the same thing. It proved that others truly wanted him. Bonded to his brother, Sunstreaker knew Sideswipe loved him, but the rest of the world remained an enigma. Bound, 'forced', and abused to the edge of pain reassured Sunstreaker.

Thundercracker would have to be very careful.

"I have mid grade fuel as well. Do you want some? And do you want to recharge afterward?" He still didn't know how he felt about Sunstreaker's openly given trust, but he never wanted to give the twins cause to leave them. He very much wanted Sunstreaker again and again.

"Please? Fuel and a nap? Then... Then maybe you can hold me down and _make me_ again?"

"I can do that. Here--" Thundercracker reached for the bedside table. His body stirred again at the offer of role play. The seeker was glad he had given himself a free day for his indulgence. He would need the time to recover himself. "Drink. Then rest. You recharge deeply enough--I will 'catch' you while you're out."

Sunstreaker shivered. "Yes, sir. Thank you."

"Anything you want, Sunstreaker."


	6. Torrid Affairs

Already gasping in a vain effort to help his overworked ventilation systems, Sideswipe knelt over Thundercracker, hands clutching the bedclothes on either side of the blue seeker's head and knees pressed tight to his hips. Denta clenched, Sideswipe rocked back on his knees. Inside him, he felt the wide toy inch forward again, forced deeper, and his sensory net rolled his processor. Throwing his head back, he gasped and shook. Overload threw Sideswipe into a confusion of borderline agony. He knew now, at least, what Sunstreaker got out of having Thundercracker frag him raw. Primus, he would feel this in the morning, but he didn't want them to stop. Another slow push of the toy, just halfway home in his valve, triggered an aftershock so good his vision blanked out.

"Beautiful, Si. Almost ready," Starscream purred behind him, but with the rushing of fuel in his lines, nothing registered but the soothing tone. Wide hands stroked him, encouraging his body to build charge again. Thundercracker pulled Sideswipe's head down as the world swam back into focus. Sideswipe suckled avidly at the seeker's mouth, and Starscream pushed that too wide toy another fraction. Sideswipe keened into the kiss, rubbing himself on Thundercracker's body. The seeker's full spike smeared pale streaks on his belly, and Sideswipe groaned. Dropping his mouth to Thundercracker's throat, Sideswipe imagined filling his mouth with that spike instead. Starscream pushed the toy again, and Sideswipe rocked backwards again.

"Sideswipe!"

With his valve wet, dripping around even the toy's girth, and relaxed from overload, it finally slid home fully. It drove hard against sensors still excited in the wake of dispersed charge, and Sideswipe screamed at the sudden fullness. His body seized as a new wave of charge crackled over him, lighting every sensor and filament with a knife edged glory. Thundercracker pulled his head back down, claiming his mouth again, and Starscream moved that fat toy, twisting it each time, in and out of Sideswipe's body. Oh, Primus, did it feel good. The quick pace drove his charge up again, left him burning and pleading for another overload. Then Starscream took the toy away.

"Sideswipe?"

Sideswipe growled and rubbed himself over Thundercracker's hard spike.

"I think he wants less chatter and more action."

Hands wet with Sideswipe's arousal grasped his hips and guided him halfway down on Thundercracker's spike. It felt small after the toy, but oh so good there. Hot and charged. Sideswipe growled into Thundercracker's kiss when the hands on his hips held him there. He wanted all of Thundercracker's spike inside him, not this tease. Four hands lifted him up, held him with just the spike's head inside him. Starscream moved in behind him, spreading Sideswipe's legs even wider. A warm, wet hand shoved him down until he rested chest to chest with Thundercracker.

Finally, finally, a second spike head pushed in beside the first.

Thundercracker's hands at Sideswipe's hips pulled back him down, just halfway again, as Starscream pushed in. Sideswipe's body seized, all over again, as both spikes stretched the limits of his valve. His sensory net flared with fullness right to the border of pain, shoving anything else out of his mind. Starscream's hands replaced Thundercracker's at his hips.

"Sideswipe?"

" _Don't you dare stop,_ " he hissed back.

Thundercracker pulled him back for a kiss, swallowing his moans. Starscream held Sideswipe's body still, then the seeker behind him moved inside his valve, Thundercracker's spike motionless but stretching him. Again and again, and it hurt, and Sideswipe would _kill_ Starscream if the fragger stopped, because he was _so_ close. _So_ close.

Thundercracker broke their kiss and groaned, "Star, I want inside him already."

His hands joined Starscream's at Sideswipe's hips. Starscream pulled out behind him, ignoring his curses. Together the seekers brought Sideswipe's hips flush to Thundercracker's. And _that_ felt like the Well. Then Starscream's spike pushed at him again. Valve stretched wide from both the toy and the teasing, Sideswipe noticed only a moment of resistance before Starscream slid inside. He thrust in again until both seekers fit together inside Sideswipe, filling him. He knew he screamed again. Knew it, and did not care. So full.

"Sideswipe, talk to me -- Look at me, please?"

"So _close_ , please. Primus. _Move_ already--"

Starscream thrust into Sideswipe over Thundercracker's spike, hard and fast, and Sideswipe swore his processor melted. Thundercracker claimed another kiss as his spike let loose inside Sideswipe, pumping hot transfluid through a shuddering overload. The rolling charge over the seeker's body as Starscream moved faster, pushed harder, and drove into Sideswipe until he overloaded, too. The world drowned out around him in little arcs of pleasured lightning and the faint sounds of tripped breakers.

Functional thought returned at a crawl. The dull pain in his empty valve faded to a throbbing ache, by then, and he moaned as gentle hands turned him over to lie on his back. Cracking one optic open, he watched Thundercracker pat at the mess from his abused body with a warm, damp cloth. For that matter, he realized one of those cloths tucked under his aft, too. He made a face for the mess coming out of him; it had felt so good, though. Starscream knelt on the bed beside Sideswipe, wiping himself clean. Sideswipe groaned and stretched. Thundercracker looked up, and the seeker reached out to cup Sideswipe's face and rubbed a thumb over his swollen lips. "How do you feel?"

"I've felt better," Sideswipe said, shrugging against the bed. Offering Thundercracker a lopsided smile, Sideswipe reached up and pressed his hand against the seeker's wings. "Nothin's torn. _Aches_ like the pit, is all, but not like when you had Sun sittin' careful for a week. Told you I'd be fine."

"That you did," Thundercracker said, his tone dry. "But he likes that pain."

"Yeah, well. Felt awesome with my head in the game." Sideswipe smirked. "And I don't really hurt."

Starscream looked down at him. More specifically, he looked down at Sideswipe's valve. "It is a lovely sight like that. All wet and open. Like it's waiting for another go."

Sideswipe watched Starscream reach down to stroke the abraded folds. Overworked sensory filaments lit weakly, but they promised another round would feel good, sore or not. He shuddered and reached up out return the favor, exploring the familiar details of Starscream's slowly contracting spike. Thundercracker snorted at both of them. "I don't believe you're up to another round of the same, Sideswipe."

"Naw, I'm not for the _same_. But just one of you is good. Go nice and slow. And I could suck the other off. I know you both like that idea. Have me at both ends." Maneuvering cautiously up to his knees, Sideswipe stretched up to kiss Starscream. More transfluid and lubricant dripped across the red seeker's hand rubbing through the plush membrane protecting his valve. He covered Starscream's hand there with his own and guided two big fingers up where they would do him some good. Thundercracker pulled Sideswipe's chin away to claim his mouth, and Starscream chuckled. Shuffling on his knees to face Thundercracker, Sideswipe ignored Starscream to trail kisses down the other seeker's front when the mech released him, teasing the familiar territory with lips and denta and quick, probing licks. Starscream wrapped his free arm around Sideswipe's torso, pulling the grounder's hips up onto his lap. Sideswipe tumbled forward into Thundercracker's lap with an indignant sound, but the position pressed Starscream's thickening spike right against his aft.

Thundercracker pushed Sideswipe up enough to turn on the bed to face his partners. Sideswipe settled on his elbows, rubbing his already soaking valve over the spike behind him. Starscream curled his fingers inside Sideswipe, and the grounder cursed inventively. So _good_. Sideswipe pressed an open mouthed kiss over the spike in front of him, tasting himself, Starscream, and Thundercracker all mixed. Thundercracker moaned above him and rubbed Sideswipe's horns. Only one thing could have made this any better, but Sunstreaker and Skywarp had gone out somewhere.

Sometimes, Sideswipe thought, it was so easy to _like_ them.

* * *

Elbows on the counter and chin in his hands, Sunstreaker watched Trailbreaker fold the fresh made flat white cake things around the gooey purple dollops of whatever. The process of cooking fascinated him. The large mech had a small hand press that he crimped the edges with to close the small pies. He moved slowly, but efficiently, never missing a beat in his work. He put each crimped piece on an oiled cookie sheet, and when he had finished them all, he took the previous tray out of the oven and replaced it with the new. Sunstreaker made a face at the hot air radiating out. "How do you deal with that? The heat I mean."

"Hmm? It's not bad. It's better than making fired treats. Pastries are stable, at least."

"Huh?"

"The basic fuels aren't stable, so cooking is kinda exciting if you aren't paying attention. Fired treats means those jellies or the little hard candies. To reduce them like that, I gotta apply open flame. Even with the added metal salts, sometimes they fire up. But baking like this is easy. They don't fire up."

"You talk like Starscream."

"Yeah, well. Cooking and chemistry aren't very different," Trailbreaker chuckled as he rolled out more of the cake things to dollop with the purple goo. "He just can't be bothered to cook. So he asked me to come with him, when he finally set himself up a household."

"They really some kind of princes, then?" Sunstreaker asked. Dropping his arms to fold in front of him, he watched the mech work, still fascinated. "Thunder's lessons say they are."

"Oh, his and Starscream's clans are in the Inner Circle, yeah. The current Crowned Trine is near the end of their reign, and Starscream wants to be named Inheriting Trine by the current Inheriting Trine after them. Gotta be part of the Inner Circle to be named, so... Yeah. In a sense. It's not like the old folk tales I remember about the Kaonite Emperors, back in the day." Trailbreaker looked up with a quick grin then looked back at his pies. "You an' Si are going to be fine, now stop fidgeting. Starscream'll be down in a minute, and if your pretties are all tangled..."

"I feel like a volt cat, ready for show," Sunstreaker mumbled. But he lowered his hands from the bits of frippery.

"Well, the feeling comes with the position, my builder said." Trailbreaker laughed, but Sunstreaker looked up sharply.

"Your builder said?"

"Oh. Hmm," Trailbreaker mumbled and glanced at him again. "My builder is a hetaira. Prettier than I am, like you are; my frame took after his builder's donor. But, my builder said he often feels that way. But don't worry. Starscream and them will do good by you."

Sunstreaker stared at Trailbreaker as the mech worked. He had known the mech was from Vos. He had known the mech came out of Starscream's build household. But that Trailbreaker's builder worked in the twins' position came as a surprise. Unfolding his hands, he leaned forward, "You... Your builder is? Can-- Can we talk to him? I mean, we have some questions, and--"

"Shh. Calm down. Starscream didn't introduce you yet?" Momentarily puzzled, Trailbreaker reached over the counter to pat Sunstreaker's hand. "Well, I guess there's been no time, yet. They've been busy filling your head with all the things they want you to know, huh? Good thing you two are so young."

"Star knows your builder?" Sunstreaker cycled his optics. It made sense, if Trailbreaker's builder worked for some highly placed seeker. Which would explain Trailbreaker's position in Starscream's household before leaving with Starscream.

"I should hope!" Trailbreaker's laugh always felt bright, and somehow it felt good to smile with him. "You just go ask Starscream to call up our build household. Ask him to introduce you to Knock Out."

"Your build household..."

"Oh. He didn't think to tell you, huh? Yeah. I'm his house-brother."

"What's that mean?" Sunstreaker asked slowly, but he thought he already knew. Trailbreaker frowned across the pies at him then performed the same in and out dance with the trays in the oven. He set the tray aside and looked at Sunstreaker again, taking off his mitts.

"It's not somethin' you'll need to worry about," Trailbreaker said slowly. "Twins' spark resonances are more subdued. They don't influence the growth of the sparklings as much. Yours will be seekerlings. They won't have house-brothers."

"You're his _brother_." Sunstreaker splayed a hand over his spark. Starscream had been very pleased Skywarp had found twins. Starscream and Thundercracker both talked like they would carry seekers. He hadn't thought about why. Or what would happen if he didn't.

"House-brother, yes. I'm not a seeker."

"So, what, you're not-- But you aren't-- And that's--" Trailbreaker came around the counter. Resting his heavy hands on Sunstreaker's shoulders, Trailbreaker shook the young mech lightly.

"Shh. Look, I'm here, doing something I enjoy. I've got a comfortable place. And you won't have to worry. All yours will be seekers. They'll be pretty things, too. You'll see. They'll have everything. You've told me where they found you. And you two would need a third to build a creation, anyway. You found the best place."

"I-- You're...right," Sunstreaker said slowly. "We've got everything here."

But unease settled in the pit of his gut.

* * *

"You _are_ ready for this," Thundercracker said as he adjusted the bits of finery attached to Sideswipe's plating. His amusement made Sideswipe grin up at him. Sideswipe did _not_ care for the prettying up. He didn't want to sit still to have everything applied. He didn't want to remember to move carefully while it was on. He didn't like the way it felt on his plating. Gold strings with colored rocks in intricately made holders with clips or tiny hidden suction cups or cleverly placed magnets. Too much and all of it slag, like the things he took off the seekerlings in the dive bars. The seeker ran a hand down his back plates. The light touched feathered around, but never quite touched, the embedded sensors there. Sideswipe leaned into the touch. The flip side to his dilemma, Thundercracker made things up to him in the most _excellent_ ways afterward. While Sideswipe hadn't liked the cuffs, that hadn't ended the fun for Thundercracker--or Sideswipe. His mind was still weighing the ropes. _Sunstreaker_ had liked the way they looked on him. "You're going to ruin your adornments."

"Hey, you went an' put your hands on me, Thunder. I'm all for you keepin' 'em there," Sideswipe grinned, lifting his chin to meet the taller mech's optics, and let himself enjoy Thundercracker's laughter. Sideswipe struggled with that reaction a little. If it had been Skywarp, Thundercracker would have corrected the language. Proper language from a proper seeker. Thundercracker expected Sideswipe to perform well in public, but he ignored the same class-related tells from him in private.

Because pets couldn't always be expected to perform at their best all the time.

Sideswipe did like Thundercracker. And he certainly didn't regret this arrangement. Getting off the streets and into a real home with real credit changed the entire landscape of his and Sunstreaker's life and future. The three seekers, faults and all, were the core of that safety net. But Sideswipe didn't have to _like_ those faults.

"You gonna do somethin' 'bout the charge later, at least? Don't leave me all warmed up..." Sideswipe stepped forward, fitting himself plate to plate with the seeker. He just reached the mech's throat from here, and Sideswipe abused that height difference to nibble at the plate edge. All three seekers loved that little trick.

"Sideswipe--"

"Aw. I wanna have somethin' to look forward to. I can give you somethin' to think about," Sideswipe whispered into the mech's throat structure. He ran his hand over Thundercracker's warming array. He smiled, feeling Thundercracker's soft groan more than he heard it. "Just a little fun before the gala. Keep your hands to yourself, and no one'll have to know I sucked you dry."

"Very tempting, Sideswipe," Thundercracker said. His optics followed Sideswipe's hands down his body. The seeker caught one and held it, his thumb stroking the ridge of Sideswipe's plate. "Lie back on my bed."

"But--"

"Lie back, Sideswipe. We'll get to my pleasure. You can be still, can't you? I do not want your adornments in disarray. You must present a respectable image."

"You keep sayin' that."

"They do not allow just anyone into the line of succession, Sideswipe."

Staring into the middle distance, Sideswipe nodded. Then in the proper language Thundercracker preferred, "I know. Starscream has excellent lineage, even better than yours. Our _origin_ will not make a difference, because that is mitigated by our _condition_. But that only holds true if we can behave properly."

Thundercracker actually chuckled. "I know you listen. I know you understand. I know Sunstreaker will do as we ask because he is happy here, but you're the thinker. We need you to agree."

Sideswipe looked at him sharply, and Thundercracker touched his cheek. "Will you lie back for me now? Let's get a little pleasure in before work, shall we?"

Still watching the seeker warily, Sideswipe sat on the mech's bed and, careful of all the frippery, laid back on the soft bedding. As yet clean of his own finery, Thundercracker knelt on the floor between Sideswipe's legs, pushing his knees apart with light hands. "Hold still, now. I don't want anything mussed."

Sideswipe hissed as the seeker bent over him. The wet heat of Thundercracker's mouth suckled over his array, coaxing his valve open embarrassingly fast. A day after taking the two on, Sideswipe still felt tender, but everyone had been _very_ happy to apply gentler methods to Sideswipe's anatomy. Right now, Thundercracker slipped his arms under Sideswipe's bent knees. The seeker laced their fingers together and nuzzled deeper, promising Sideswipe bliss before he finished. Looking down the length of his body, feeling Thundercracker part the membrane until his denta closed lightly around Sideswipe's node, Sideswipe let the mech drive the vague unease out of his thoughts. If anything, Thundercracker was much, much better at this than the over-eager Skywarp. Gentler, more thorough. And when the seeker moved that kiss inside, Sideswipe came apart.

After, muzzy in his afterglow, Thundercracker kissed him, long and deep, and Sideswipe floated through the stupid gala.


	7. Running In Circles

The rounds of introductory parties wore on Sunstreaker's temper. On the other hand, like managing the household, Sideswipe took to it with gusto, easily breezing through the evenings and charming everyone they met. He sang without a hint of fear, he chatted, and he danced. Sunstreaker thought about setting fire to the lift. Then they wouldn't have to leave the suite. If not for Sideswipe, Thundercracker's disapproval notwithstanding, he might not have gone at all. He had no special talent to offer at these gatherings, outside of his beauty. Most of the time, the very presence of strangers irked him. The incessant questions, the bright, false smiles, and the poisonous compliments ate at his calm. Starscream tried to pet him through it. Skywarp tried to jolly him. Thundercracker promised rewards. Sideswipe just said he wanted to be with Sunstreaker. And Sunstreaker found a way to be okay.

Skywarp and Thundercracker had stumbled on a better way to help him relax after the evenings ended, at least. One the twins' prior circumstances had never offered. On the old datapad Skywarp had found and taught him how to use, Sunstreaker discovered an art program on it. If the first few months had been a _frustrating_ learning process with the program, Thundercracker had surprised him by taking him out to real classes on painting both with the datapad and with real, physical paints. Fascinated, and still frustrated, Sunstreaker had taken to abusing the poor, old datapad at every opportunity to sketch patterns or things and then to color them with the program. And then to delete the hideous things and try again.

Sideswipe laughed and hugged him. His brother failed to understand the growing obsession, but he knew Sunstreaker loved it in spite of his cursing. Sideswipe vented his unease on the seekers themselves, to their amusement. Or in bossing the more surly house staff. He got his own back in little ways through the day. And with his head for numbers, Thundercracker had begun to teach him how to handle the finances. Sideswipe had leapt on the idea. He chatted at Sunstreaker often, about how the root monies given to Starscream and Thundercracker by their clans had grown, and how he felt the monies could be grown further. Sideswipe's unease still grew, like Sunstreaker's, but every added responsibility meant a new distraction.

And they weren't _unhappy_. Sunstreaker recalled old tales their creators had told him before the accident at the Kaon mines had taken their builder. Before their sire had walked off into the night. The feeling that he had wandered into one of those tales grew. But something sat wrong about the whole thing. The story drifted sideways from happily ever after. Fixing it, he felt, was a matter of naming it. Of giving it a shape he could see and manipulate. Sunstreaker had everything he had ever wanted. And a nagging, unshakable sensation of disquiet hung over it all.

After getting the servants to rearrange stored items out of two of the closets, Starscream showed Sideswipe into a new office. In it, a new desk waited with a comfortable chair and a stool meant for his guests. On newly installed shelves, a few small sculptures had taken residence. A bright, abstract geometric painting hung on the wall most easily studied from Sideswipe's new chair. Rooms of their own, for the first time, and neither knew what to do with them. Thundercracker surprised Sunstreaker with an art studio in the other former closet. Sunstreaker stood in the middle of the room for hours after Thundercracker had guided him inside. Hours after Thundercracker had left him to examine all the brushes and knives and paints and chemicals he barely understood the use of, Sunstreaker finally gave his unease a label. That it had come from this gift rather than his own mind surprised him. Fumbling with the lids, Sunstreaker stared sidelong at the soft blue grey of the walls. In naming it, Sunstreaker lost his certainty of fixing it at all.

But showing it, perhaps, remained an option.

* * *

When Sunstreaker shoved him the first time, Skywarp had gotten angry. Then Skywarp caught sight of the _look_ on Sunstreaker's face in those moments. Beneath half-closed optics, a slow smirk curved his soft lips. To tease, Sunstreaker licked his lips with just the wet tip of his tongue. And Skywarp's spike had pinged online so fast it ached. Every time, he reached out to grab the mech. Sunstreaker griped about the scratches, and sometimes he ran. But Skywarp felt the heat coming off him, every time. He heard Sunstreaker's systems fighting hard to keep cool. The most telling detail, Sunstreaker always bared himself early in the infrequent struggles. The heady scent of arousal lodged in Skywarp's head; it made his body ache. Maybe it made him rougher than he needed to be, but it felt so good to have the smaller ground frame under him. To push Sunstreaker down, to hold him, and to use him however Skywarp wanted.

This time, after chasing Sunstreaker through the aerie, Skywarp had run his target to the ground in the main room. Sunstreaker responded to his tackle by _wiggling_ out of his hold, forcing Skywarp to make another wild grab for his prey. They knocked into the low center table, and Sunstreaker used his size to try to climb under it. Snarling, Skywarp grabbed both of the mech's knees, sat up on his knees, and yanked Sunstreaker backward. His weight and height won over Sunstreaker's grip on the table. Skywarp hunched over the grounder to catch and pin Sunstreaker's hands. 

Now, Skywarp had pinned Sunstreaker face down on the floor. He ignored the heavy steps that stopped at the main room archway. The servants knew better than to ogle their masters' fun. Thundercracker wasn't home to complain about how he handled their pets. Starscream never stopped him unless he broke things, and he wouldn't break either twin. Venting raggedly, Skywarp bared his denta and wished the position allowed him to kiss Sunstreaker's back from here. But the mech's struggles promised Skywarp that the mech hadn't been won. Yet. With Sunstreaker's aft rucked up into his lap and those golden thighs spread over his hips, Skywarp felt Sunstreaker's bare valve rubbing over his thighs and against his recessed spike. Leaning forward, his body pressed hard against that hot, ready valve, and Sunstreaker groaned under him, head lifting in a gasp.

Skywarp wrangled both of Sunstreaker's hands into one grip and pressed down harder. The fragile joints creaked, and Sunstreaker whimpered. He wiggled under Skywarp, rolling his hips. Letting his spike free, the seeker grinned down at him and brought his hand back. He stroked over Sunstreaker's aft and shoved two fingers inside the mech's valve, hard and graceless. He never pretended to be the smooth lover Starscream or Thundercracker was. Skywarp only knew how to be rough. Like every other time, Sunstreaker yelped indignantly then he ground his body against Skywarp's moving fingers. When Skywarp found the particular spot he wanted inside Sunstreaker's body, he pressed into it hard and brought the heel of his hand down over the swollen anterior node. It made his wrist ache, but Sunstreaker shrieked.

Sunstreaker always denied shrieking, after, but Primus, it got Skywarp so hot when either or both twins writhed under him. When the sounds they made echoed in his audials. Sunstreaker purred over the rough treatment, twisted and begged for it, at least _during_. Pulling his hand free and ignoring Sunstreaker's annoyed grunt, Skywarp pushed his spike in. The twins still felt so tight on him. Sometimes he wondered if he would go out like this, sunk deep into slick heat and making a sticky, hot mess on the floor. He thrust into Sunstreaker and reached for the mech's anterior node again with his freed hand, not caring about the smears he left across the vain grounder's abdomen. Pinching the tiny, sensitive numb, Skywarp got himself a scream, ripped out of Sunstreaker by surprise, and Sunstreaker arched under Skywarp. Breakers and wisps of pleasure made visible in lightning tripped all over Sunstreaker's body.

Growling, Skywarp dragged Sunstreaker up. He ignored the grounder's overload weakened complaints and pushed Sunstreaker over the low table. Barely sparing a glance to see that Starscream watched them, stroking his spike, just inside the archway, Skywarp spread Sunstreaker's knees with his own and thrust right back into that spasming, dripping valve. Skywarp wrapped a hand around Sunstreaker's throat, forcing him to arch back. He wrapped the other arm low around Sunstreaker's middle. The grounder struggled to get a grip on the table, gasping, and Skywarp felt his valve clench with excitement. Sunstreaker found his grip, steadying them both, and Skywarp growled again. His grip tightened; he fragged Sunstreaker harder. The twins could take anything he could dish out, had taken it, so Skywarp let his control go. He chased his own overload in a rough, fast rush, and Sunstreaker pushed back, gasping for cool air or another overload or both. Or maybe just for relief.

Sunstreaker braced them on one bent arm, and Skywarp felt him reach down. Sunstreaker's fingers splayed around his valve, framing Skywarp's thrusting spike, and covering his own swollen node. Skywarp pulled Sunstreaker into a deeper arch and sunk his denta into the back of Sunstreaker's neck. The burning valve clenched around him, and Sunstreaker wailed. Skywarp bit down, marking Sunstreaker. Hurting him more, maybe, but Skywarp didn't care. Chasing his own release in Sunstreaker's body, Skywarp groaned and cursed. When overload rolled up and out from Skywarp's gut, spreading through him like fire, he shuddered. Squeezing too tightly, he shook until the high faded. Slipping out and off, Skywarp flopped back on the floor, leaving a strutless Sunstreaker to drop on the table. The lovely, scuffed mech hissed when Skywarp reached out to touch the wet, gaping membrane. He licked his lips even as Sunstreaker smacked his arm.

"May I cut in?" Starscream's voice called, reminding Skywarp that they had been watched. Turning to Starscream, Skywarp's grin became a smirk. Next to him, Sunstreaker stirred. After stroking a finger down his spike, Starscream stalked closer. "I do so love the way you feel after. Stretched. Wet. And so hot."

"You're weird," Sunstreaker murmured. Starscream hummed thoughtfully and bent to help him stand with a sidelong, reproachful glance at Skywarp. Starscream guided the grounder to the sectional. Lazy and sated, Sunstreaker let himself be pulled down and spread over Starscream's lap. Skywarp watched his trine partner caress Sunstreaker with slow, even touches. The grounder melted against Starscream, systems purring and head fitted under Starscream's chin. Then Sunstreaker muttered, "Skywarp bit me."

"So I saw. Held you down and took you hard, too, like a mechanimal. Looked like you enjoyed it, you know, but I know you still prefer cosseting and petting to anything else, don't you?" Starscream grinned at the face Skywarp made over Sunstreaker. The grounder lifted his head up, looking up at Starscream. Skywarp knew his expression without seeing it. A soft smirk, half-closed optics, and then Sunstreaker would lick his lips. Sly mech had just used that look on him. Starscream bent to claim Sunstreaker's mouth, ignoring Skywarp's snickering, and dropped his hands to Sunstreaker's hips. Bracing one hand on Starscream's shoulder, Sunstreaker reached down between them. With his own interest stirring all over again, Skywarp wrapped his hand around his spike, optics locked on Sunstreaker's fingers spread over his valve. Starscream broke the kiss to look down and watch Sunstreaker fondle himself.

Sunstreaker smirked and rubbed his fingers through the freshly beading, transfluid-streaked lubricant. He teased the swollen lips and node much more gently than Skywarp had treated him. The soft, slow strokes of his fingers played for show as much as they explored for his own stimulation. Starscream rubbed at the joins of Sunstreaker's hips and thighs. His thumbs found just the edges of the wet mess to spread. "You do put on a beautiful show, don't you?"

"You love it," Sunstreaker murmured. He exhaled softly and eased two fingers inside himself and settled his palm over his excited node. "You gotta give me a minute to catch up to you. You don't want to _not_ get me off, right?"

"It would be a shame to miss you overloading again," Starscream purred back, nuzzling against the arm Sunstreaker had on his shoulder. "You and your brother both are so perfect for us."

Sunstreaker closed his optics instead of answering. Spreading his knees wider, he thrust his own fingers inside himself as far as he could. Sunstreaker gasped, hips rocking, and trembled, and Skywarp wiggled on the floor for a better view to watch Sunstreaker's self-service. Sunstreaker had his own silvery fluids and Skywarp's violet spread, gleaming wetly, all over his hand now, from his own valve. Skywarp shivered, listening to the wet slide of Sunstreaker's fingers, and the mech's own rumbling satisfaction. Skywarp stroked for his own spike, not caring about the mess he still wore. The same mess Sunstreaker toyed with one his body, dripping down onto Starscream's hard spike.

It was a shame when Starscream caught Sunstreaker's wrist. Skywarp missed Sunstreaker's expression, this time, but he knew that smirk on Starscream's. Sunstreaker eased his hand free of his body, only to reach up and put his fingers on Starscream's lips. His trine partner opened his mouth and sucked the wet fingers inside. Dropping his hand back to Sunstreaker's hips, Starscream guided Sunstreaker down. They both moaned as their bodies came together, and Skywarp pumped his spike faster. He had the best view of Sunstreaker sinking down, filling himself with Starscream's spike, of Starscream licking bright fingers clean, and Primus, the little needy noises the grounder made. Skywarp went to work with both hands, teasing himself through the warm, slick mess left on him.

Starscream lifted Sunstreaker by his hips, and the pale gold membrane clung wetly, stroking the other seeker's spike. Lowering Sunstreaker gave them both just that hint of resistance and up he went again. Skywarp groaned watching them and increased his own tempo, thumbing the little slit on the head. He bucked into his own hands as Sunstreaker arched backwards. And Starscream's face, caught in growing ecstasy--oh, Skywarp had _missed_ his mates' caught in the wash of overload. The twins had been the perfect idea; their presence ended the arguments and brought this back to the trine. And Skywarp loved them for it.

Starscream moaned, letting go of Sunstreaker's hand. Instead, he caught Sunstreaker's mouth. His wings flared against the sectional back, and the visible arcs of climax whipped across his frame. Sunstreaker whispered quiet little pleas into the kiss, begging for relief. Skywarp watched Starscream move a hand from the grounder's hips. Squeezing himself and pumping harder, Skywarp saw Starscream twist his hand to tease the valve spread over his own spike. Sunstreaker broke their kiss to curse, back arched and hands clutched hard on Starscream's shoulders. His body shook and released charge flared all over him. With Starscream there, venting hard as he came down from his own high, head bowed to rest his chin on Sunstreaker's shoulder, Skywarp separated that still from the video capture and he focused on it, teasing himself to his own overload, unconcerned that he spilled across his own belly. Life just felt too good.

When Skywarp finally looked up again, Starscream wiped a cloth over the mess at Sunstreaker's array, keeping his touch careful and light. He murmured soothingly when the grounder whined and leaned forward. Sunstreaker pressed shamelessly into Starscream's hold. Cleaned and thoroughly abused like this, Sunstreaker liked to snuggle. Looking down at Skywarp, Starscream smirked and petted Sunstreaker. "Come on. Let's take a nap, shall we? Thundercracker and Sideswipe won't be back until tomorrow. Let's enjoy the time. Come on, move this to a bed."

"Don't wanna move."

Skywarp laughed from the floor and held out a hand. Starscream threw the cloth at him. It had been so good to need them again. He wiped himself off, mostly, then he wobbled his way to his pedes. "Bed. We can nap and do this again."

Sunstreaker looked up at him, optics half-shuttered and dim. "No."

"C'mon, lazy struts," Skywarp murmured and pried Sunstreaker's fingers off Starscream. "I'll carry you."

"Mmm."

Starscream laughed this time, as Skywarp collected each clinging limb and pulled Sunstreaker close. "C'mon. I promise, in the morning, I'll bathe you, smooth every dent, and buff every scratch. And I'll do it right."

"Promise?"

"He will, Sun. I'll make sure he does," Starscream said and run one hand down the bright plating of his back. Sunstreaker purred and allowed Skywarp to pick him up. Sunstreaker had closed up, and Skywarp knew better than to act on the new stir of interest right now, anyway. He would never make another round himself.

* * *

It took time to cover the walls of his little room. It took time to recreate the darkness of Kaon across the southern wall. Towering buildings dotted with bright lights and their feet swathed in inky shadows. Trash in the streets and cracks in the walls formed in the small sphere paler grey at the forefront of the image, beneath a broken street light. Loose strokes of dingy red and washed out ocher created tiny frame half buried in the debris of the alley behind the light. Other forms, dim and dirty, walked in the dark without definition.

It took time to re-imagine the view of Vos from their rooftop garden on the northern wall. From the glittering spires to the dark swatch of Hardshell feeding the rainbow of crystals the slush mix that grew them, to the high rails and open skies above. The smiling shadow of Trailbreaker offered a tray of glowing gelled treats while other hands pointed from the edges of the mural, lining it with accusation.

On the eastern wall, opposite the door, Sunstreaker spent nearly a year. It could not be deleted and redone. Each stroke of the brush had to be perfect. The angles and colors pulled from his memory had been made to exact standards the impressionist recreations of the other two walls could not compare to. Sideswipe lay, belly down, on a soft bed, its black coverings rumpled and piled. Knees bent, legs crossed at the ankle, he reached up, and below his chest, light spilled across the bed, highlighting it with a rainbow sheen. The soft smile curving his lips failed to dismiss the darkness in his half-closed optics.

When it had been finished, when Sideswipe had held him and kissed him and whispered about love and eternity, Sunstreaker had fallen apart in his arms. They spent the night making love in his small studio, holding hands and taking their time among his paints and brushes. Sunstreaker didn't miss his brother's body moving inside him. Or his own moving in Sideswipe. In the glow of his life, Sunstreaker had everything he wanted.

In Sideswipe, he found the only relief to what disturbed him. Spark to spark and so nearly one for the briefest seconds, Sunstreaker felt peace. He wanted to be happy.


	8. Complications

When Thundercracker had visited Sunstreaker's tiny studio after the murals' completion, the seeker knocked. He asked permission to enter, and Sunstreaker floated around the room after letting him in, restless and uneasy. Thundercracker caught him by the painted garden, his hands warm and real unlike the shadow hands o the wall, and pulled him close. The spark behind the seeker's chest canopy, wasn't Sideswipe's, but the familiarity of its echo grew as the months became years. One large hand cradled his jaw.

Sideswipe handled Sunstreaker like he could take anything. Thundercracker treated him like something fragile.

Now, Thundercracker leaned back on the one bare wall, cautious of the artwork without a word of warning from Sunstreaker. He pulled Sunstreaker to him. The seeker's hands curved around his hips, encouraging Sunstreaker to wrap around him. Sunstreaker wondered if his joints would bow out eventually, even as he spread them over Thundercracker's body, to fit himself in a lean over the mech. Thundercracker's lips teased the edge of a fairing and trailed down to the cabling of his throat.

Sunstreaker closed his optics against both the shadowy hands and plateful of treats on his wall. Turning his head, he caught Thundercracker's mouth and pressed for control. Both of the hands on his rear tightened, lifted him up higher, and _rubbed_ his body over Thundercracker's thickening spike. Need had him opening up, too, and Sunstreaker resisted Thundercracker's efforts to change their position. Instead, he copied Thundercracker's earlier caress to lick and suckle at the seeker's throat. Thundercracker groaned, and Sunstreaker guided the seeker's hand between them, moving his own hips in encouragement, got Thundercracker to line them up.

Filled and burning, Sunstreaker ground himself over Thundercracker. The seeker gasped, head going back, and Sunstreaker swore the mech's grip would leave dents on his aft. But it felt good to have Thundercracker so deep inside, hitting every place that made him shake. It felt good to have just that little bit of control as Thundercracker rocked up into him. Every move torturous and slow, and it felt so good to let it wipe the shadow hands from his thoughts.

Almost, he felt happy.

* * *

When Skywarp got too rough, Sideswipe had learned to kick the seeker's legs out from under him while shoving on both broad shoulders. The mech invariably toppled back, denting his own elbows in the process of catching himself. It still left Skywarp's mouth too high to do Sideswipe any good, even on the low table in the living area, so Sideswipe shoved the mech's head down. Skywarp always bent, eager to share any fun, and applied his mouth to Sideswipe's valve. Skywarp made everything fun, and he liked it rough. Sideswipe's kind of mech. With everyone home for the evening this night, and the servants dismissed to the lower levels, Sideswipe decided a game on his term was in order. A slow tug across their halved sparks brought Sunstreaker out of that studio Thundercracker had built. When his brother found them, he stood beside Sideswipe, arms around his middle. Sideswipe planted a pede on the sectional beside Skywarp, opening himself up wide and pushing Skywarp down.

Skywarp _loved_ to watch them kiss, and the echo of his moans reached deep up into Sideswipe's valve. His hand on Skywarp's shoulder tightened, and the other followed the trail of pleasure points down Sunstreaker's body, to settle on teasing the inner join of his thigh until Sunstreaker broke their kiss, gasping for cooler air his flared plating couldn't find. Sunstreaker broke away to drag up a chair, and Sideswipe pushed Skywarp's mouth off of him with a hiss. Grinning down at Skywarp, Sideswipe pushed him back. Not hard. Just enough to make the mech lean back. His optics watched Sideswipe's wet valve like the first bite of a meal, and Sideswipe's grin widened.

After running a finger through the mix across Skywarp's lips, Sideswipe turned around and planted his aft on Skywarp's chest just to lower himself down, leaving a trail of his own wetness behind him, until he sat on Skywarp's lap. Seated on the chair, legs spread, and his own valve glistening, Sunstreaker hissed when Sideswipe's hands touched him. He moaned as Sideswipe leaned forward to close his mouth over Sunstreaker's bared valve and explored the familiar territory with lips and tongue. Behind him, as Sideswipe began to rub himself over Skywarp's hard, ready spike, the seeker moaned.

Sideswipe let Skywarp lift him by the hips and guide him back down. The wonderful spread of that hot spike in his valve made him growl into his brother. Sunstreaker's hands grabbed at his shoulders; Sunstreaker always got too excited when someone took control to tease Sideswipe back now. But with Skywarp doing all the work at their hips, Sideswipe focused on devouring his brother's body--burning valve to wet thighs. Skywarp muttered some nonsense behind him, but it was the increasing pace of Skywarp pumping Sideswipe's valve over his spike that warned Sideswipe. Closing his denta over Sunstreaker's node, Sideswipe applied just a little pressure. Just enough.

Sunstreaker arched, every cable in his body snapped taut, and his deep, satisfied groan hit Sideswipe in the pit of his belly. Skywarp's rhythm faltered even as he breathed a prayer to Primus. The ghost of Sunstreaker's overload ran sparklers through his vision, and Primus but he wanted his. Wanted it _now_. Sideswipe rolled his hips on Skywarp's spike and reached back to swat the seeker's hands off his hips. Licking and nibbling a wet trail up Sunstreaker's front, Sideswipe set his own pace over the spike buried in him, and Skywarp's vents grew harsh. Sideswipe clutched the chair on either side of his brother's thighs and rode Skywarp for his own overload. Shaking, Sunstreaker bent to lick Sideswipe's lips, taking in the taste of himself first, before diving in for a deep kiss.

Wound up so tightly with the other half of himself, he felt the warm hand at Sunstreaker's back seconds before a palm cupped over Sunstreaker's twitching valve. Sideswipe broke their kiss, opening optics he hadn't been aware of closing, as Sunstreaker squeaked indignantly. Looking down, he saw Thundercracker's palm grinding over Sunstreaker's swollen node. Sideswipe didn't need to see the pair of thick fingers slide inside his brother's body. He looked up. Thundercracker's spike already jutted up from his array. Shuddering through a wild aftershock, Sunstreaker grabbed Thundercracker's arm with one hand. He kept his other tight on Sideswipe's shoulders.

Thundercracker leaned down to whisper, lips pressed to Sunstreaker's audial fairing. The standing seeker thrust his fingers deeper into Sunstreaker. Sideswipe watched his brother roll into the caress, and he _felt_ the sharp burst of hungry arousal across their bond. Then Thundercracker curled his free hand under Sunstreaker's aft, helping the gold twin off the chair. Sideswipe hissed, sharing his brother's annoyance, and Skywarp cursed.

Thundercracker tugged Sunstreaker back, spreading Sunstreaker's legs over him and mirroring Sideswipe's position on Skywarp's. Sideswipe felt the burn and his brother's intense pleasure as Thundercracker thrust in beside his own fingers. Sunstreaker leaned over the small distance between them, covering Sideswipe's mouth with his. His hands desperately sought out all those places on Sideswipe's body that drove him over the edge.

Groaning, Sideswipe pushed back and moved his body over Skywarp's spike again. Skywarp's lusty cursing barely intruded. But he felt the way Thundercracker lifted Sunstreaker by the valve, mashing that oversensitive node against the heel of his palm. Sideswipe devoured his brother's whimpering cries as he had devoured his brother's valve. He shared back the way Skywarp lifted him up by the hips, almost lifting him free, and then guided Sideswipe's movements back down hard.

Desperately touching each other, hands everywhere, and filled over and over again, Sunstreaker began to shake, and he opened his spark up, breaking their ravenous kiss. Sideswipe wrapped his arms around Sunstreaker, grinding their opened plating and bared sparks against one another. Releasing the inner shields initiated the bonding protocols in ordinary mechs, but in them, already bound, it just removed the last barrier between them.

Sunstreaker's erotic pain blended seamlessly into the hard thrust in Sideswipe's valve. A counterpoint that drove them right into a spark deep overload. Mixed up and meshed together, the seekers' pleasure became a rush of heat that filled them even more. Rapture rode them all the way up and back down into a shaking messes sprawled on Skywarp and Thundercracker's laps.

"I'll take one of each," Sideswipe heard Starscream say harshly. "Bedroom. Now. Someone's. I don't care whose."

Sideswipe looked up from Sunstreaker's shoulder to smirk at the trine's leader. Starscream clutched at the archway frame, and his optics were far too bright. "Feelin' lonely? We can take care of that..."

* * *

The casual touch across his left sensory horn sent a shudder along his struts, and Sideswipe nearly dropped the delicate glass import to his desk. Expecting and finding Starscream standing behind him when he turned, Sideswipe smirked up at the seeker. Starscream loved his horns, and the touches felt good enough to encourage, most of the time.

Turning back to finish unwrapping Thundercracker's gift, Sideswipe looked around his tiny office. Sunstreaker's art replaced the original abstracts on his walls, but Thundercracker had picked out some small statues to compliment them. Beautiful pieces, but really fragile. Starscream leaned into him, wrapped an arm around his waist, and pressed his head against Sideswipe's. "I see they have arrived."

"Yeah. They're really nice. Kinda not sure what to do with them, though," Sideswipe said. He absently pushed back into the embrace before pulling away. He bent to pull the last one from the crate and straightened again to unwrap the packing materials. Starscream released his hold around Sideswipe's middle to claim the one guest chair. The seeker watched him put the sculpture beside the others on his desk. Abstract pieces, but each suggested shapes Sideswipe knew. A seeker's sleek tetra mode. A broad, angular mech. A lithe ground mode. Sideswipe touched the pseudo-ground frame alt mode, stroking one finger down its curves.

Starscream chuckled and wagged a finger at Sideswipe. Then he pointed to the shelf above and behind Sideswipe's desk. "Those lovely little things will do best back lit. Up there, with the soft light strip. I suggest placing the two smaller pieces on either side of the taller. Balance."

"Yeah, yeah. You talk about that a lot." Sideswipe grinned at him, but he picked up the tallest statuette first. Starscream snorted then leaned back. The flat backs and lack of arms on any of the furniture still periodically annoyed Sideswipe, but living with the three Vosian natives... Sideswipe understood. The broad wing structure made all small spaces awkward. Which made him wonder. As he moved the smaller pair, he asked, "So, what brings you down here? It's a little cramped in here for you, ain't it?"

"Yes. But I wanted to spend an evening with you," Starscream said, smiling up at him. "I have been invited to a poetry performance at the university. It's a weeklong series, but tonight's feature is 'Songs of Praxus'. A Praxian governmental delegation has announced they will attend. I'd like your company tonight, when I go."

"What time is it? So I can leave early enough to meet you there," Sideswipe asked, smothering the urge to sigh. From the education Thundercracker had given the twins on their position and the sly 'corrections' Starscream had offered, he and his brother both handled themselves well in public now. Thundercracker even praised them. If the mech had an ulterior motive for the praise, Sideswipe ignored it. Both twins craved it.

Like their time alone together, it gave Sunstreaker a little peace to hear. A little welcome calm. It wasn't like they didn't love the seekers, too. And that complicated the whole situation. They hadn't thought they _could_ fall for someone else, let alone three someones.

Starscream's hand closed over his around the flier-shaped statuette, startling him into letting it go. The seeker caught the piece then set it down carefully in place on the shelf. Starscream wrapped both arms around Sideswipe's middle and propped his chin on Sideswipe's head. "I thought I'd hire a shuttle and we would go together. I know you can take care of yourself on the lower levels. You've said so many times. But it's not... It's not proper."

Sideswipe made a face at the wall. At least Starscream had the grace to hesitate, saying that. The twins weren't proper hetaira either, but for being _what_ they were: twins. Both had adapted over the past few years, in fancy manners and pretty skills. They had learned to speak differently, and they ran the household more than the seekers now. But the word 'proper' began to rank as Sideswipe's least favorite. "I like to get places under my own power, Star. We've been over this."

"As do I. I said I would ride with you tonight."

"I'm not--" Sideswipe shut his mouth with a snap, then stepped sideways. Starscream let him go, and Sideswipe looked up at him. Then he vented, in spite of himself. "Right, then. How formal? When should I be ready?"

Both Starscream's brow plates arched up. "You don't need any of the fine wear. The invitations have requested a casual atmosphere. Si, what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. I just want to be ready in time for the performance." He smiled brightly at Starscream and felt around the edges of the block his brother had put between them earlier. Skywarp had claimed Sunstreaker's time earlier. Thundercracker had followed them both, though. Skywarp liked it rough, and so did Sunstreaker. Sometimes both liked it a little too much. Thundercracker didn't like the damage that left on Sunstreaker, though, any more than Sunstreaker did. To Sideswipe's relief, Thundercracker really didn't seem to like inflicting pain. Not that Skywarp wanted to hurt them. He just didn't always think things through. He did seem to like helping buff Sunstreaker later. So Sideswipe reached without expecting an answer, but he felt lonely without his brother's active presence.

Starscream drew his attention back to the moment by sitting his aft on Sideswipe's desk, then pulling Sideswipe to him with enough force to make it an order. Sideswipe looked away as the seeker cradled him. The seekers hadn't asked for their sparks yet, hadn't asked them to carry, and Sideswipe felt increasingly grateful. But the frequent proximity had still begun to make them feel familiar, pressed together like this. It shouldn't have felt so comforting coming from a mech that thought of him like a pet. "Something is wrong, Si. I know you're unhappy about the shuttle ride. It's all part of the image we need to project. Now that we have you, the Inheriting Trine is looking in our direction. Of all their prospects, we are the best, Si. We're the most financially secure, between the finances Thundercracker and I brought in, and your and Thundercracker's deft handling of it. Through Skywarp, we appeal to the lower classes. I have the academic circles. Thundercracker pulls in even more highly ranked seekers than I can."

"I know all this, Star," Sideswipe said. He relaxed into Starscream's hold unwillingly; he still wished they hadn't been lovable.

"We've told you often enough, I should hope," Starscream muttered sarcastically. "Let me try to explain another way. As our power and influence grows, the danger to you becomes greater. Everyone knows that hetaira carry our heirs--"

"We didn't. Not until you told us."

Starscream sighed. "And Skywarp didn't either--yes, I know. It's not _discussed_ because it's _known_ in high circles. Rivals might target you as a means to harm us. Particularly when you are carrying. I had some.... I want to ask you soon, but I need to know that you will take your safety seriously."

"You want sparklings now?" Sideswipe did _not_ squeak. If he hadn't been swallowing a giant ball of terror, he would have been proud of himself. But he did wiggle inside Starscream's hold, making the seeker release him.

"I wasn't going to open you up right here in your office," Starscream said with a smirk. It faded into a soft warmth. His hands fell to Sideswipe's abdomen. "But I... I find I'd like to see one of you growing big with our sparklet soon. I want to fill you up, watch you grow round with our efforts... And then feel _you_ with me, making that little life. I want you to know why I'm asking you to follow our rules, Sideswipe. I want you to understand."

Sideswipe looked up at that loving expression and thought he wanted to purge. Sideswipe wished again that he hated them. It would have made everything so much easier. "O... Okay. I need to get ready to go out. I haven't properly washed."

"Sideswipe, by the Well. Why are you so upset?" Starscream's hand moved on his jaw, forcing him to meet the seeker's optics again. "It'll be fine. I'm not asking you open for me tonight. I thought next year, okay? We've only just passed the solar revolution. That's a whole year. I know it's not long from your perspective--"

"Star, shut up. Let me get washed up for your thing, okay?" Sideswipe shoved at Starscream's chest, denta grinding. Starscream watched him take two steps to the door, but he didn't get up. Instead, he held out a hand to Sideswipe. For his part, Sideswipe lifted his chin. "Come on, if you want me to help you."

"What is this about, Si? You don't want to come? I can take Thundercracker, after he's finished. I wanted to spend time with _you_. I enjoy your company as much as my trine partners and your brother."

"Fraggin' ain't exactly keeping company--" Sideswipe snapped, then he took another step back. He knew he shouldn't have said that. Starscream was off the desk and had caught Sideswipe before he could take any further steps away. The seeker held one arm tightly and pushed Sideswipe's chin up with the other hand. Sideswipe flinched.

"Seekers enjoy interfacing, Sideswipe. A great deal. And _our_ physical relationship has been difficult for a while. You've brought the joy back into it for us." Starscream's hand at his chin drifted up to cup the side of Sideswipe's face. The seeker tried a grin that faded quickly. "Sideswipe, I don't understand what's going on in your head, but I want you to spend more time with me. I want you to follow the rules we put down. I plan for you to build for me. This is part of your position."

"Yeah... Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean--"

"You meant it. And you're scared more than sorry. Sideswipe, what the frag is wrong?" Starscream framed his face with both hands, and Sideswipe flinched. The seeker vented, "I can't fix it if you won't tell me what is wrong."

"Nothing is wro-"

"Sideswipe, I do _not_ appreciate lies," Starscream said, frowning now. He released Sideswipe, looming over him, and the grounder rubbed his arm and dropped his gaze back to the floor.

"Maybe I don't know how to tell you what's wrong," Sideswipe said, but each word came grudgingly. He tried not to flinch when Starscream took another step forward. The seekers hadn't hit them. Sideswipe didn't really think they would, but not all the violence Sideswipe knew had been physical. And for all the dismissive handling, he knew the seekers cared. If that care took only a slightly different form than the care for a volt cat... "Let me get ready, okay?"

"Fine. Come on, then. We can help each other." Starscream said finally, after a long pause. He reached for Sideswipe's hands, frowned, and rubbed his thumbs over the insides of Sideswipe's wrists. "But we will talk about this later. I don't like when either of you is upset. There's no need for that."

Except Sideswipe knew there _was_.


	9. Breaking Wave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank Rizobact and 12drakon for helping me with clarity issues. :D

"Master?" Sunstreaker asked uncertainly when Thundercracker turned Skywarp toward the playroom. Sunstreaker hadn't been down here with more than one seeker yet, and he didn't necessarily trust Skywarp with half the equipment Thundercracker had stocked the room with. Some of those things could _hurt_.

"Sky, lie on the bed, please. On your back," Thundercracker said in a level, soothing tone on entering though, without answering Sunstreaker. Skywarp even took three steps before he stopped to look at Thundercracker.

"Wait. I'm not openin' up--"

"I'm not asking you to open. In fact, I think I'd like you to close something." Thundercracker walked to the cabinet and opened it. "Here. This is one of my selections. Let me clean it..."

"A ball with straps? What's that gonna do?" Skywarp asked. He looked at Sunstreaker sideways as the grounder shivered. "What's it do?"

Sunstreaker shook his head at the demand. Thundercracker wanted quiet. _He_ liked the gags, but he also didn't like them. Sunstreaker wouldn't admit that he moaned when Thundercracker took out a second. The one that always made his jaws ache, after. Thundercracker smiled at him, and Skywarp growled. "The Pit, mechs?"

"Lie down, Sky. Let me show you a way to 'face Sunstreaker hard without scratching his plating." Thundercracker moved several items to the tray; the gags, soft cuffs, chains, a thick ring, and a curious hollow spike-shaped one. "Sun, please bring the silver box to the table by the bed. You know, I didn't think I wanted the chains, but where you won't try to tear the ropes... Hmm."

Sunstreaker followed Thundercracker to the bedside table, with the box in his hands. He cupped Sunstreaker's jaw and smiled. "Good. Now take the pitchers to the wash room. Make the cleaning solution I taught you in one. Fill the other with water, okay? Bring towels back."

"Yes, sir." Sunstreaker went quickly, leaving the seekers alone. That made his nerves worse, but Thundercracker had drawn out two gags. That confused him, but if... If Thundercracker restrained Skywarp as well... Straddling the uncomfortable line between fear and excitement, Sunstreaker carried the filled pitchers back with care. He paused at the threshold, staring at the seekers before he shook himself. Sunstreaker had seen them kiss before.

He had never seen Thundercracker quite so aggressive about it, however. Skywarp lay back on the bed now, gasping, as Thundercracker closed the larger of the cuffs meant for wrists around Skywarp's. Thundercracker sat up, dragging Skywarp's bound hands over his head. Skywarp licked his lips and watched his trine partner with narrow optics. "Now, I'm going to chain you to the headboard, Sky. One of these gags is for you. You won't be able to speak-- Shh! I am not planning to spike you. You're going to spike Sunstreaker. Remember, if you really want this to stop, you can comm me. Come here, Sun. Put the pitchers down. That's good. Turn on both pitchers' warming feature, if you would. Now come here."

Thundercracker rubbed a hand down his back, and Sunstreaker shuddered, straightening away from the pitchers. Thundercracker caught his jaw again. "Will you get Skywarp worked up for me? Make sure he is fully excited. I will let you have your gag after he is ready. Straddle his legs, Sunstreaker. I need them together. Skywarp, behave. You'll enjoy this as much as Sunstreaker. I've watched you roll under Sideswipe enough."

Sunstreaker did as he was told, rubbing himself against Skywarp's leg. He closed his mouth over Skywarp's closed array. With Skywarp already wanting, it only took that well-placed kiss for his spike panel to retract sharply back. Sunstreaker brought the head into his mouth, pressing at the sensitive cluster of relays on the back. Skywarp gasped and arched up, trying to get deeper into Sunstreaker's mouth. Chains snapped taut behind Sunstreaker, startling him. He looked up, pulling off Skywarp's spike, and the bound seeker cursed. Thundercracker smiled. "That's good, Sun. Get the small gag and clean it. You remember how to put it on, don't you? Good. Rinse, dry, then put it on Sky, please."

Reaching up the length of Skywarp's body, he heard the mech under him groan. Looking down, he followed Skywarp's gaze to his own bared valve. He hadn't realized he had. Shivering, Sunstreaker looked at Thundercracker. Taking some reassurance from the mech's smile, he returned his attention to Skywarp. Thundercracker had chosen one with a harness. Skywarp wouldn't be able to just spit it out. Sunstreaker dipped one of the small towels into the cleaning solution, as ordered, glanced at Thundercracker, then finished as ordered. He held it out to Skywarp. The bound seeker looked at him, then behind him, optics dark. Thundercracker's chuckle sent another shudder along Sunstreaker's body. "Take the gag, Sky. I won't change my plans on you."

Skywarp narrowed his optics, but he took the gag and lifted his head to let Sunstreaker bind it firmly in place. Thundercracker checked it briefly then picked up the ring. "Now, this will extend our play time, Sky. Sunstreaker loves to be 'faced until it hurts."

Skywarp squirmed and growled around the gag, but struggling against the cuffs got him nowhere. Thundercracker watched Skywarp and tapped the side of his own head to remind Skywarp of his comm system before Thundercracker reached down and slid the ring over Skywarp's spike. When he had it at the base, Thundercracker brushed the tiny button to one side. It drew tight, and Skywarp moaned around his gag. "It's only going to slow you down, Sky. Let everyone enjoy the buildup. Sunstreaker? You're dripping. Come here."

Sunstreaker scrambled over Skywarp's body to meet Thundercracker's kiss. A warm hand cupped over his valve, spreading the wetness, rubbed over his node, and Sunstreaker groaned. Thundercracker broke the kiss and turned to the table. He picked up the hollow spike toy, cleaning it carefully. "A moment, loves-- I had wondered when you bought this, Skywarp. I don't think you knew its use, but I did. It is meant to rest on a pole which one binds a partner over. It's meant to encourage them to stay precariously balanced because it will hurt to have this seated deeply. Not too terribly, but pain is supposed to be a deterrent. But now... Well, when I looked at this carefully and thought about it, I saw a second option. The channel inside is just a bit snug for a spike. It would feel very good, but not hurt. Sun, kiss Sky's spike. Make him more eager for me."

Skywarp thrashed in his bonds when Sunstreaker licked the head of the seeker's bared spike. He sucked it in slowly, relaxing as he had learned, and using his hands for what he never could quite take. He pulled up slowly, moaning, and Skywarp whimpered behind his gag. Sunstreaker watched Thundercracker dry the toy he had cleaned then liberally apply lubricant from the bedside bottle inside of it. "Up, Sun. That's a good mech. Push this down on him. Turn that nub it has upward. You'll see what it's for, I promise. Pump it on him a couple of times. Make him feel how snug it is. I want him to know how good it will be for him."

Sunstreaker obeyed the commands, pumping it over Skywarp's straining erection eagerly. The prickly surface of the toy felt odd in his hands. Thundercracker worked at the bedside table, picking up the remaining cuffs and chains. Then he looked up. "Stop, Sun. Leave it all the way down on it. Ah, ah--nub up. Good. Pull that string there to tighten the rim of the toy on him. Tighter. Very good, Sun. Now, squat with your valve over his spike. Directly above, please."

Looking down at the toy on Skywarp's spike, Sunstreaker understood now. Filled with Skywarp's spike, its girth matched the biggest toy they had. He thought he would overload _right then_. He shuddered and almost reached for his valve. Sunstreaker felt Thundercracker's hand on his shoulder. Closing his optics, he calmed himself. Then he opened them and crawled over Skywarp's body one more time.

Thundercracker cuffed Sunstreaker's hands in front then lifted them up to the lowered hook Sunstreaker hadn't noticed. Thundercracker raised it again, but he didn't pull it tight. "Sunstreaker, I want you to come forward a little. That's it. Pick your knees up-- Wider. That's it. Steady."

Thundercracker pushed at his aft to keep him hovering. Then the blue seeker strapped one big leg cuff around Sunstreaker's thigh. These cuffs connected with a solid bar. Thundercracker reached up to catch the loose ends of the wrist cuffs' chains to attach these ends to the bar. Sunstreaker wouldn't be able to kneel. Sunstreaker would just hover above that massive toy until his knees gave out. Then he would come down. Hard.

"Just think, the longer you hold out, the more it's going to hurt. Open your mouth for me, love," his tormentor whispered. Thundercracker paused long enough to clean the remaining gag before helping Sunstreaker get it into his mouth. Not a true sphere but an ellipsoid, the thing filled more than enough of his mouth to keep his tongue in place. Thundercracker ran a finger down his cheek. "Comm me if this is too much."

Sunstreaker shook his head, sucking on the mouthpiece. Whining, he lowered himself just enough to brush his need-swollen valve over the toy and Skywarp inside it. The shifting slack in the chain lifted his hands, but Skywarp's moan distracted him. Thundercracker chuckled. "Just think about it, Sky. He will get tired. He will come down on that toy over you. You'll hurt him, and he will scream in ecstasy. 

Thundercracker stroked Sunstreaker s head, looking down at Skywarp with a smirk. And then he'll struggle up, only to fall again. His endurance is impressive, too. But it's the end of the day. I know how tired you are, Sun. Stay up as long as you can. Let Skywarp imagine you falling. Imagine filling yourself with that toy. And that toy squeezing his spike hard every time you come down. And after, when you're good and sore, it will be my turn to fill you up."

Overload roared through Sunstreaker, and he knew that was Thundercracker's intent. Thundercracker always knew _exactly_ what to say. His knees failed him, weakened with pleasure, pedes sliding forward. Sunstreaker did scream. Too wide, too full, too _sudden_. The blunted spines rubbed at the walls of his valve, burning through his vision. He screamed again, aware of the trickles at the corners of his mouth. That lump he had wondered at, the little nub Thundercracker had so insistently told him to face up crammed against his anterior node as he rocked over Skywarp's body. Its prickly points drove a second shock through his system.

Shaking and desperate to get off the toy, Sunstreaker pulled at the chains, but that only pulled his cuffed thighs up by the spreader bar. It ground him even harder against the toy. And Sunstreaker screamed again. He heard Thundercracker's voice in his audials, full of praise and lust as Sunstreaker struggled against his bonds, oh so effectively fragging himself and Skywarp with that thing squeezing the seeker's spike so tightly.

Sunstreaker couldn't get his balance back. His pedes kept sliding on the bed covers and the ache in his valve, the burn, spread to his hips. Skywarp bucked to meet him, finding the worst ( _best_ ) possible rhythm. Vocalizer shorting, Sunstreaker dropped his head back in a silent scream. Thundercracker's body pressed full length against his back now, cradling him and holding him still for the muted violence of Skywarp's thrusts.

He couldn't take it, no matter what the rich, touchable voice in his audial said. The fiery pain seared all through his senses, blotting everything out with how good it felt. When the tension between pain and pleasure snapped, another overload stole vision and sound, leaving him in the dark with soothing hands on his body and an agonized valve tearing his remaining senses apart from within.

Sunstreaker came back to himself on his back, resting on the bed, still chained. The chains still ran over the hook, but now his pedes hovered in the air. Beside him, Skywarp sat up with Thundercracker wiping his spent spike with one of the soft towels. The toy and the seeker's cuffs and chains were gone. Skywarp looked down at Sunstreaker's open valve between the grounder's spread legs, licking his lips and Sunstreaker shuddered. Raw as his valve felt, lust stirred like a drug in his body. Thundercracker looked up, red optics flaring. His own spike stood out proudly, biolights pulsing with his own hunger. Sunstreaker whimpered behind the gag.

Thundercracker tossed the cloth he had cleaned Skywarp with into the hamper and walked around the bed, back to where Sunstreaker was bound on the bed by the stocked table. Sunstreaker's staticky vocalizer managed a muffled curse as Thundercracker pulled Sunstreaker to the edge of the bed. The chains pulled his legs back against his belly, baring him completely to Thundercracker. The seeker cupped his palm over Sunstreaker's valve, rubbing in the wetness there before he bent to lap at the abused mesh and node. Sunstreaker's vocalizer cut out on a shriek. He pulled on the chains, twisting against them, to push his throbbing valve into Thundercracker's hand.

He would not admit to sobbing around his gag.

Cursing above him, Thundercracker grabbed his hips, forcing him to be still. Lining up, he thrust into Sunstreaker, and Sunstreaker's processor threatened to black out again. Fiery pain radiated through his body. He wanted it, his body ached with need already, and the fierce pain warred against his desire instead of feeding it. Sunstreaker whimpered, twisting against the chains. [ Thundercracker! ]

The seeker froze, optics snapped open to find Sunstreaker's face and take in his pained struggles against the chains. Thundercracker shuddered. Once, hard. Thundercracker removed himself, slow and careful, though Sunstreaker realized he still shook as badly as Sunstreaker. He reached up to cradle the grounder's jaw. "Sunstreaker?"

[ Hurt too much, sir! I'm sorry! It didn't feel good anymore, and you said -- ]

"Stop! Shh. Easy, Sunstreaker." Thundercracker's other hand went to his valve, smoothing over Sunstreaker's mistreated body. The grounder shivered, thrumming with sensation. Thundercracker smiled wryly as Sunstreaker gave a staticky whine and pressed into the touch. "Good pet. That's good. You did what you were supposed to do. If you want more pleasure, I'll give it to you. You're nodding for yes? All right. Shh. Let me distract your body then, hmm?"

Thundercracker pushed his heel into Sunstreaker's swollen, abused node. Still unable to speak aloud, Sunstreaker twisted in the chains. Thundercracker moved the hand at Sunstreaker's face to his hip, holding him. Pleasure returned, balanced against the ache, then picked up momentum. Sunstreaker half-expected Thundercracker to try again, to push his spike in, but the mech didn't. He held Sunstreaker still and moved his hand, again and again.

"Sweet Primus," Skywarp hissed beside them. The other seeker crawled across the bed, only to get down to the floor. He knelt at Thundercracker's pedes, hands reaching up to make room for himself under Sunstreaker's leg and to grab Thundercracker's hips. Skywarp looked up and hissed. "Not a word, Thunder. Don't say it."

When Skywarp's mouth closed on his spike, the rhythm of Thundercracker's hand faltered. He recovered, driving Sunstreaker to the edge, then over. Optics closing, Sunstreaker shook under Thundercracker's hands tightening on his body. He cried out in pure static around the gag. The hands left his body to plant themselves on the bed beside his hips. Sunstreaker looked up at Thundercracker again. He could just see Skywarp's head moving urgently up and down on Thundercracker's spike between his legs and the standing seeker's chest. Thundercracker shivered above Sunstreaker, red optics narrowed and glinting with his pleasure. Then Thundercracker tensed, hands clutching the bed covers, and a long, slow shudder wracked his body.

He straightened, every movement slowed with lassitude, to nudge Skywarp back. Carefully, he released Sunstreaker, soothing each abused joint. Skywarp flopped back on the floor while Thundercracker took care of Sunstreaker. The grounder could see Skywarp's head and shoulders above the edge of the bed when Thundercracker helped Sunstreaker turn onto his side. The standing seeker made sympathetic noises, as he ran his hands over Sunstreaker's body in slow, comforting strokes. After, Thundercracker reached up to undo the gag, and Sunstreaker whimpered, jaw popping, as the seeker removed it. "Shh. It's over. I've very proud of you, Sun. Can you speak?"

Sunstreaker shook his head, and Thundercracker hummed thoughtfully. Straightening, Thundercracker went to the bedside table. Sunstreaker watched him wet a cloth and wring it out. Still warm from the heated pitchers, the damp cloth felt so, so good over his valve. Sunstreaker shivered and curled in towards Thundercracker. He could ignore his unease. Like this, with Thundercracker cleaning their activities from his body and with gentle hands petting him, Sunstreaker melted into a hazy, distant mental state.

"He still barin' it? Lemme see? Ow, Thunder!"

The edge of unease he had begun to absorb into his daily life returned, and Sunstreaker opened his optics to watch Thundercracker shove Skywarp away from Sunstreaker's legs. "Stop. He needs rest, Sky. That did really hurt him. No. I said no touching."

"I wanna see," Skywarp muttered. Skywarp sat on the bed by Sunstreaker's head, and the grounder realized he had curled up with his pedes at the head of the bed, around Thundercracker standing beside the middle of the bed.

"Absolutely not. I didn't see any bleeding, but he's obviously too sensitive for anything else tonight." Thundercracker rested an arm over him, wings tilted down to offer shelter. Unease still curled in his processor, Sunstreaker snuggled closer to Thundercracker as the seeker sat on the bed. Thundercracker petted his back. "Sunstreaker, can you speak now?"

"Yes," he whispered back. "Felt good."

"I know it did. How do you feel now?"

"Raw. Empty. Sleepy."

A gentle hand stroked his back. Another caressed his audial fairing. He closed his optics. "Rest, Sunstreaker. I'll wake you when Star and Si return from their evening. Okay?"

Closing his optics, Sunstreaker vented. He didn't think he would drift off. He wanted to feel their warmth against his plating, seeping into aching joints. Lowering the carefully constructed blocks, he felt Sideswipe's anger and frustration. His fear. It spilled over into him with a cold shock and Sunstreaker tensed. Thundercracker made another soothing noise, rubbing him, and Sunstreaker felt for Sideswipe's conscious thoughts.

Starscream wanted Sideswipe to carry. Sunstreaker felt his own terror rising. They weren't ready. They _weren't_. All thoughts of rest evaporated, but he forced himself to relax again. He had to talk to Sideswipe. Before everything fell apart.


	10. Mixed Messages

Starscream had no complaints about Sideswipe's behavior at the poetry performance. The young grounder had learned the manners due their station better than Sunstreaker, although Starscream had to admit their other hetaira also did well in public, as long as one did not leave him alone. Sideswipe applied his natural charm to the Praxian delegation during the first intermission, when Starscream had schemed to get them closer in the lobby. Sideswipe had known how to claim and keep attention well before Skywarp had found them. Enamored targets paid far less attention.

They worked so, so well. Both twins. If he hadn't seen that glimpse earlier, Starscream would never have realized how upset Sideswipe remained. The lovely, cunning mech even lured a shy, reserved junior member of the delegation into laughing. The head of the delegation thanked Starscream, privately, for Sideswipe's efforts, as they both looked on. The opening allowed Starscream to lay important groundwork for a trading connection Thundercracker would be eager to secure.

It wasn't until the shuttle ride home that silence fell, cold and stark. Normally Sideswipe took his finery off, stowing it his subspace, to join Starscream on the wider couch toward the back of the shuttle’s passenger area. It wasn’t done to lose the small bits in the shuttle’s passenger area. Shuttles working at their level of society turned a blind gaze to risqué pursuits in their spaces, and Starscream loved Sideswipe’s playfulness. Tonight, however, Sideswipe sat in one of the forward seats, hunched up, and stared unblinkingly through the courtesy viewport. Their hired shuttle, the same as earlier in the evening, remained silent, and he hurried them home, obviously eager to get away from their growing tension. Morosely, Starscream thought shuttles always had been a sensitive lot. On the rooftop landing, while Starscream paused to pass an extra gratuity to the shuttle, Sideswipe escaped quickly to the lower levels.

Sneaky fragger, Starscream snarled to himself as the shuttle left.

Coward took the servants stairs, too, preventing Starscream from immediately following. Starscream took the lift, growling, and stalked toward the twins' bedroom. He wanted to clear up whatever was wrong with Sideswipe before it upset everyone in the household. The past few years had been blissfully peaceful, and Starscream meant to hang on to that feeling. The centuries of devolving relations between the trine had _not_ been pleasant. The sinking, tearing feelings seeping into the bond they could not sever would have been poison. Starscream would not return to that. Could not. The twins made everything perfect.

Sideswipe was not in the twins' bedroom.

He found Thundercracker and Skywarp dark in recharge, on the play room's bed. Sky's frame draped over Thunder, but the golden frame Starscream expected wasn't with them. Cold dread circulated into his system, and Starscream forced himself to stop and clear his mind. This would not devolve into the war zone the seekers had lived in before. Starscream would not let whatever misunderstanding was going on get to that point. Staring down at his peaceful partners, Starscream tried carefully to think where the twins might be. Starscream wondered if they had left. Looking at the floor, he silently prayed to Primus that they _hadn't_. His memory reminded him that Sunstreaker's art studio sat next to Sideswipe's office.

Letting the door close behind him, Starscream turned back to the lift. If they weren't down there, he would have a fit. If his initial panic dissolved into faint embarrassment, he could sleep happily that night. Still, a small, uneasy piece of his processor replayed Sideswipe's fear before they had left. The young mech really had been frightened, and Starscream didn't understand the problem. Having sparklings was part of the contract, and having one _now_ would go measures toward making the trine's public image more steady and reliable.

And they had to be both, or at least _seen_ that way, if they wanted into the line of succession. Starscream could not stress the importance of this enough. And... And picturing Sideswipe's middle hard with his sparkling, torso plating parted with the bulk as the chamber bulged before emergence...

Starscream shivered as the lift descended. Perhaps he was as kinky as his partners, he thought wryly. That mental picture went straight to his array, lighting circuitry with lust.

But it _had_ been fear Starscream saw. And that disturbed him.

To his surprise, the studio door didn't open as Starscream approached. His sense of fairness calmed his immediate anger. He remembered again where screaming and fighting had gotten him and his partners. It had left them miserable, lonely, and desperately seeking the two he knew had to be behind the door. A second of investigation proved the studio door locked, and instead of overriding it, Starscream took another moment to steady his annoyance and physically knocked on the door. He hoped the relative contriteness of that simple act got through.

The only answer he received was a soft snick as the thrown latch disengaged. Someone had decided to let him in. Starscream pinged the door, and he felt like it opened slowly, though Starscream knew that impression was all in his head. Beyond the door, at the foot of a gorgeous rendering of Sideswipe, both twins curled together and watched him with closed, wary expressions.

For a moment, Starscream hesitated and watched them right back. Uncertainty roiled in his tanks. He did not like the way they looked at him. Subtle twitches in their hands and the shifts of their ruffled armor told Starscream they talked to each other, across their bond. For a long, lonely minute, Starscream wanted to reach out to his own partners. His gaze lifted back to the exquisite painting on the wall across from the door, and he stepped just inside the little studio. He had not been here since the reallocation of the room, but he was not surprised that Sunstreaker kept it tidy between the times he came down here to work. Starscream saw an unfinished piece on a stand, but the paint splotches on the closed rolling chest told him where the golden twin's supplies were. And on the walls... Thunder's compliments fell grossly short, Starscream decided; Sunstreaker wasn't just talented, he was gifted.

The right-hand wall caught Starscream's attention. It took him a few minutes to realize he had seen this skyline before, but from above. Kaon. At this angle, from the street level, surrounded by decay and nearly obscured in shadows, Starscream barely spotted two tiny smudges of somewhat brighter color, red and ocher, near the bottom center. The twins, he thought. Gutter-made like Skywarp. Shapes of dereliction marched outward over the wall's surface.

Turning, he saw their own garden and his house-brother, but the mech’s wide smile felt bleak and cold, offering a plate of treats so bright Starscream wondered if they were poisoned. The garden's high rails blocked most of the skyline. Spires as bright as the tainted treats stabbed at the sky above it, alternating with spindly shadow hands that ringed the whole painting, pointing. A trick of Sunstreaker's skill made the fingers seem to point at Starscream, and he felt his wings flare defensively.

Turning his head, he looked down at the twins. They sat up now, watching him. He looked back at the painting and understood some of what Thunder's recent unease had been about. Painted directly on the wall’s surface, these images had not been made for him. These were made for _them_ ; Sunstreaker had made these for himself and his brother. And if Starscream felt rattled looking at the murals...

"So," Starscream began, choosing his words with care. He bottled the urge to deface the damned painting. It unsettled him, and he did not like the feeling. He did not like where it lead his thoughts. He forced himself to look down at the twins again. "You are not happy."

Sunstreaker turned to bury his face against his brother's chest plate. His hands tightened around Sideswipe's middle, and Starscream knew they spoke about him again. He cycled his ventilation system, giving himself time to settle his growing disquiet. Starscream gestured to both the paintings on either side of the door. "This didn't start this evening. Did it? What is going on, Si? Sun? Talk to me. What is wrong? What haven't we given you?"

Sideswipe's pinched wariness drew into a frown. Stubborn as an insecticon, he muttered, "Nothing," and held Sunstreaker tighter.

His tone set Starscream's denta on edge, and he wanted to shout at both of them. In anger or fear, he didn’t want to decide. In the vague way their own bond as a trine worked, he felt the other two stir, disturbed by smelter work of his emotions. "Sideswipe, this isn't nothing. Something is wrong. You've had charge of the finances for six years; you could have gotten anything you needed --"

"I'm not a drone, stop ordering me around!" Sideswipe snarled. Untangling himself from Sunstreaker, Sideswipe jerked to his pedes. Sunstreaker winced as his aft landed on the floor, but he climbed to his pedes as well, glaring at Starscream.

Shocked and annoyed, Starscream rebooted his audials and optics, trying to make sense of Sideswipe's outburst. "Of course you're not a drone. I wouldn't frag a doll, never mind not being able to spark with one --"

Sideswipe flinched, and Starscream stepped back. Then he shouted, knowing damn well he shouldn't, and felt Skywarp and Thundercracker’s internal focus fall on him. "I told you, I'm not asking you to open up right _now_! There're rites and ceremonies to attend to, with it being the first of the trine's children, and we can't do them yet. Oh, for the mercy of Primus, _why is that upsetting you_? You knew that we wanted sparklings."

"I thought we'd have longer!" Sideswipe shouted right back.

"It's part of your position! Part of what we needed hetaira for!" Starscream threw up his hands, exasperated. Always more agile than his partners, Skywarp arrived first, only to hover in the doorway uncertainly.

"Then maybe you should have told us you wanted us as sparked dolls!"

Starscream stared at him in dumbfounded silence. Skywarp gawped in the doorway. Starscream felt Thundercracker's surprise as an echo before he arrived. Starscream shook his head then looked at the damned garden painting again. "That's what you think? That you're just...dolls? To us? Fraggit, Sideswipe. That's -- That's crazy!"

"Is it? That's how you treat us!" Sunstreaker growled, folding his arms defensively.

Skywarp sidled out of Thundercracker's way. He looked between the twins and his partners with an expression Starscream couldn't read. The strangest edge of _hurt_ curled up from Starscream's core, and he pushed it out of his thoughts, knowing it wasn't his.

"We certainly do not," he snapped at Sunstreaker. "I would not invite a _doll_ into my house and ask it to have my bits! That _is_ crazy. By Primus, where did you get that idea?"

"It's how you act," Skywarp interrupted, rubbing his hands on his hips. His attention rested on Thundercracker, as he continued. "Both of you. Me too, I guess."

Sunstreaker shifted his weight uncomfortably, and Sideswipe reached across the distance to squeeze his brother's arm. They exchanged glances before they both looked at Skywarp.

"That is hardly true, and you know it, Sky," Starscream glared at Skywarp. He turned back to the twins, holding out his hands. "Things have been going so well. Where did -- This whole idea is scrap. I -- _We_ love you, and we've been _happy_! We aren't treating you like drones. You're _family_."

"Like Trailbreaker?" Sideswipe demanded. "You treat him like family? Down in the kitchen... You didn't even tell us he was your brother."

"He's my house-brother," Starscream explained, exasperated. "It's different."

"No, it's not!" Sunstreaker hissed. A fine tremor ran down the mech's spinal housing, and his optics watched the door Thunder still blocked with a kind of fear. "You have the same builder. Same fraggin' donor, even, because _he_ wasn't good enough. They had to make _you_."

"That's not going to be a problem with you --"

"How do you know? And maybe I don't want my kids treated like you treat me." Sideswipe, this time, and his voice shook with anger. "I ain't even ready for kids. I'm a fraggin' kid myself!"

"Like Pit you are," Thundercracker snapped. "We checked --"

"Yeah, yeah -- barely! And the way you act --" Sideswipe cut in.

"We do not --" Starscream screeched.

"Stop it!" Skywarp shouted over them all, clapping hands over his own audials in the effort to block them all out.

In the ringing silence that followed, Starscream heard the shuffling of many pedes behind Thundercracker. Turning, he saw the many of their servants had come to investigate the shouting, despite the hour. Hardshell and his house-brother Trailbreaker stood out against the crowd, anxiously looking in on the argument. Plating flaring with surprised embarrassment, Starscream forced himself to straighten. He vented his temper in a poisonous tone as he addressed the frightened group of servants. "It's late, mechs. Haven't you completed your tasks for the evening? You should be retired below, by now."

"They got a right to listen to you scream at us," Sunstreaker snarled. "Show them the frag toys don't even get treated like mechs."

"That's _enough_ ," Starscream hissed and spun to face the twins again. "I will not have this conversation in public. And don't call yourselves that. You aren't --"

"That's all we are to you. This's the most _you_ 've said to us that wasn't fraggin' _society_ lessons."

"That isn't true, Sideswipe!" Thundercracker hissed, moving in away from the servants. The tiny studio felt uncomfortably crowded now, with all five of them inside.

"Skywarp's spent more time with us _not_ fragging than you two combined," Sunstreaker said.

"Out!" Starscream snarled at the servants. "Get below. There's nothing to see here. You'll be needed for your duties tomorrow."

"Starscream --" Trailbreaker said softly. The other servants stepped back, their faces wary under the glare of the seekers' anger. Trailbreaker stepped forward, instead, looking between the seekers and the twins. The downward curve of his mouth spoke volumes about his worry, for all the blankness of his visor. Playing on their connection, he reached out to pat Starscream's shoulder. "It's late. I think you all need to go recharge, too. Let this go 'til mornin', yeah? I'll make a nice, special breakfast, okay?"

"Go!" Starscream repeated, nudging his house-brother out of the studio, though he did not give into the urge to shove the mech. Trailbreaker meant well. Starscream eyed Thundercracker, daring the mech to say anything about Trailbreaker's familiarity, then turned back to the twins, gaze narrowed.

"Don't want witnesses?" Sideswipe said softly. He had, with limited success, tried to get Sunstreaker shielded behind him. For his part, Sunstreaker rocked on his pedes like he would charge them. In their obvious anger and the aggression in their stances, the twins suddenly looked... Young. And Starscream felt even more unsettled by the fear it belied.

Thundercracker straightened like he had been slapped and looked down that long nose of his at Sideswipe. "We would never resort to hitting you. I don't understand where you've gotten this idea. But we should move this discussion somewhere private. _After_ rest. Come along. Let's go back upstairs."

"No," Sunstreaker said. "We don't want to."

"You want to recharge down here? On the floor?" Thundercracker growled. "Don't be ridiculous."

"We hid out in alleyways and underpasses before we ran into you," Sideswipe said, resting a hand on Sunstreaker's arm to hold him back. "We took care of ourselves."

"That hardly sounds like it," Starscream muttered with a glance at the dark Kaon skyline on the opposite wall. Putting his hands on his hips, he glared down at them both. "Come to bed --"

"We don't wanna frag any more tonight," Sunstreaker snarled. "Go away."

"How dare --"

Skywarp yanked Starscream around by his shoulder, startling both his trine partners. "Leave them alone," he vented tiredly. " _You've_ been a jerk. _Thundercracker's_ been a jerk. We've _all_ been jerks."

"We have _not_!" Starscream exclaimed, voice going shrill.

"What in all the burn of the Pits does that mean?" Thundercracker demanded.

"I mean screamin' at each other in the middle of the fraggin' night cycle, with the thrice damned door open ain't gonna make no one happy!" Skywarp roared back at Thundercracker. "An' maybe I know how they feel, you trashed afterburner. You want _me_ there, too. Invite me along, and then act like I’m a glitch mouse that crawled in your bed."

Then Skywarp shivered, pulled back in on himself, and stomped across the little studio to the door. Starscream barely caught his mumble on the way out, but he didn't understand. He looked at Thundercracker. "Put him where? What have you done this time? This isn't supposed to be like this --"

"What _I've_ done? _You_ have _them_ convinced we think they're dolls --"

"You're _both_ walkin' piles of slag! Now get out!" Hissing, Sunstreaker stepped forward, clearly meaning to force them out.

Starscream wanted to argue. He wanted to scream at them. He wanted a fight, and he wanted to win. Gritting his denta, he grabbed Thundercracker's arm and dragged his trine partner after him. If growing up in Nacelle's household had taught him anything, if anything at all had sunk into his processor around his donor's coding and Hotlink's engineering, the head of his birth household had stressed diplomacy -- and knowing all the angles of the situation.

He didn’t need to retreat. He wasn’t afraid. The view of their garden and dark, sharp hands didn’t follow him out. They didn’t linger in the back of his disturbed thoughts.

Thundercracker's initial struggle dissolved into a surly glare as Starscream pulled them both into the hall. Letting his partner go once the door slid closed, Starscream stomped toward the lift, cursing softly to himself.

"Star --"

"Shut it. I'm going to bed. I'll unfrag this tomorrow." Because he _always_ did somehow. He would do it this time. He would not think how far the fall was, if he didn’t.

He didn't expect to find his house-brother in his private bedroom, but the surreal glow of a video call connecting caught Starscream's attention. "Trailbreaker, what the frag are you doing in here --"

The call connected. On the holo display, Knock Out rubbed his face, obviously just having woken. Behind him through a wide window, the cityscape of the distant organic world Nacelle had been assigned to light up against a dark night sky. "Star -- Oh! Trails. What are you doing calling me at this hour? I'm near term, you know. I need my rest. Wait, Star? You are there. Why are you hiding in the door? Wait. You two look miserable. What's wrong?"


	11. Gravid Discourse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have to thank 12drakon and Rizobact for helping me edit this thing.

Sunstreaker locked the door again behind the seekers, closing off the twins’ view of the staff still milling around out there.

Sideswipe winced, humiliation now warring with his fear and anger. He didn’t really want the servants to talk. Not about _them_ anyway. Not more than the sidelong, knowing looks already thrown at them, in the beginning. He hadn’t thought he still cared. Over the few years they had lived here, Sideswipe had thought the servants had begun to respect them some, despite their position in the household. But now?

He thought about the confusion and hurt on Starscream and Thundercracker’s faces and wondered why he felt even worse. Shaking the memory away, he pulled Sunstreaker back to the ground with him and groaned when his brother winced. “Sorry --”

“It’s fine, Si. Told you I… I liked it. I don’t… I don’t want to leave.” Sunstreaker settled on his knees beside Sideswipe instead, but he didn’t meet Sideswipe’s optics. Well, not the _real_ ones. He looked up at the mural Sideswipe. “You asked me, but then Starscream came down here...”

“Shh,” Sideswipe mumbled. He settled his arm around Sunstreaker’s middle and looked up at the shadowed memory of Kaon his brother had bled across the wall. “They offered us an out…”

“But --”

“Shh. I’m too mad to think, okay? I wanna scream and break something, and I’m kinda scared it’ll be me…” Or Sunstreaker, but that would be an accident, at least. Himself? Not so much. And his thoughts circled back to the damned seekers. “They offered an out. Right now, I don’t wanna think about them though, okay?”

“What about me?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t wanna leave. I don’t like how they act all the time, either, but… We’re not hungry. They don’t try to hit us,” Sunstreaker said. “Do you wanna go?”

Sideswipe lowered himself backward to the floor with a thunk. Concentrating on the whole night was not helping his self-esteem, let alone his temper. He had to let it go, at least for the night. “Sun, I said I’m too mad to think. Primus below. I just want to be with you tonight. Calm down, rest up, and not think for a while.”

“Think we should stay in here tonight?” Sunstreaker asked. Sideswipe felt his brother’s hand rest on his chest. He vented slowly as Sunstreaker continued, “I’m… I’m kind of sore, but they don’t like to come down here. It’s narrow to them.”

“Doesn’t _stop_ them,” Sideswipe muttered. He brought one optic online to study Sunstreaker. Thundercracker’s escapade earlier this evening hadn’t left too many dents and scuffs behind. The nanite transfers already appeared to be drying and flaking, but the main damage hadn’t been to his brother’s plating. Sunstreaker _said_ he liked it, but Sideswipe honestly wondered how. A rough frag now and again was one thing... After a moment, he grumbled and shoved himself back up. “Bed. Any of them show up tonight, I’m gonna beat them, though.”

“Si --”

“Stop. I’m not in the mood,” Sideswipe snapped. Then, watching Sunstreaker wince, _he_ winced. Contrite, he mumbled, ”Can you stand okay?”

“I’m fine,” Sunstreaker growled back. But he winced again as he stood. Sideswipe ground his denta, but he said nothing. He followed Sunstreaker through the now-empty aerie corridors. Feeling somewhat guilty in the annoyed silence, Sideswipe caught Sunstreaker’s hand. His grouchy brother squeezed it but didn’t deign to look at him. And that made Sideswipe smile, wide and happy, for the first time that day. Sunstreaker never changed.

* * *

When Starscream began to pour out his troubles to his builder, he had expected that Knock Out would sympathize with him. Trailbreaker retreated silently while Starscream talked his anger and woe out over the quantum video feed. He leaned on the monitor, optics closed, and pictured their pretty twins’ angry faces.

“I knew you took after your donor,” Knock Out muttered, “but really, Star? You can’t be _that_ oblivious.”

Starscream jerked his head up. Knock Out rubbed the side of his face, lips pressed into a thin line. Wings bristling, Starscream straightened away from the monitor. “I’m not wrong!”

Knock Out lowered his hand, one brow ridge arched. “You are too young to consider sparking. And so are they! They're only barely adults, Star. You looked it up yourself. Of course they aren't ready! And you _certainly_ aren't ready. Contracting barely legal younglings you hardly know and not bothering to tell us, have a proper courtship, or have a proper ceremony --"

"Builder," Starscream spat, angry and embarrassed, "that's _enough_."

"Obviously _not_. I know you and Thunder are very keen on your standing, to secure the Heir Nominant. But you can't rush _family_ , and you can't treat them like furniture or even like _staff_ , Star. I'm shocked they haven't screamed at you before this. Never mind robbed you and run for their own safety. Primus below and Unicron above, child, you didn't learn that you can't rush these things when you three started fragging arguing during your nascent bonding?" Knock Out shook his head and jabbed a finger at Starscream through the display. "You. You're always in a rush. Life is too long for all that, Starscream. You spend too much time listening to Nacelle's politicking. You'll rule Vos, I've no doubt. But you won't earn the Heir Nominant next -- nor _should_ you. And if you destroy your own family for that goal, what good will it have done you? Primus, why didn’t you call me sooner? At least to tell me!"

"That's a fine way to support your eldest," Starscream muttered.

"Actually, you have an elder house-brother, Star. You're the first heir, not the first build. Look, Hotlink has a trip home to visit his brother. I'll come with him and visit you and help your poor younglings sort you and your partners out."

"Sort _us_ out --"

"Yes, you three," Knock Out said, snorting. But his expression softened, and the edge melted from his voice when he continued. "You've always been too high strung, and while Skywarp's sweet, he's rough and naive. Thundercracker is full of himself and his lineage. Between the three of you, I guess I should have expected you'd start fighting in earnest before too much longer. I should have had Nacelle talk to you. Certainly before you went and started courting more mechs to join your household."

"The House Lord didn't need to be bothered," Starscream said, hunching in on himself.

"Maybe he didn’t, but you listen to him more than Hotlink or your donor." Knock Out vented and leaned back in his seat. His hand settled over the protruding belly, drawing Starscream’s attention down. The unfurled platelets of his heavy build chamber showed between the gap of his builder’s parted abdominal median seam. He hadn’t realized Knock Out was so near to term.

"Nacelle won't want you travelling," Starscream mumbled. Embarrassed, he scowled at Knock Out. "You should stay home, this close to parting."

"I'd rather be on Cybertron for the parting, anyway, Star. Nacelle and Bitstream can show up for the naming. Hotlink will enjoy having that time between with me and the bit to himself." Knock Out grinned and glanced off screen. He leaned forward, and rustled something Starscream couldn't see. After a moment, Knock Out turned back. "We'll stay with Hotlink’s brother. The admiral. He has more room. But I'll be over to visit as soon as we're settled, understand?"

"Yes, Builder," Starscream muttered.

"Use your head and keep yourself and Thunder from cracking everything to pieces until I get there, okay?"

"We didn't do anything wrong!"

"Yes, you did. But I'll explain better when I get there. Now, I need to rest. We'll take the bridge network in."

"Yes, Builder."

"There's a good child. Good night. It is night there too, isn't it?" At Starscream's nod, Knock Out rubbed his face again. "Try to rest, Star. I'll see you soon."

Starscream watched the visual fade out. He lowered his head to the wall with a thunk and wondered what else could go wrong.

“He thinks we’re terrible, too.”

Starscream lifted his head to find Thundercracker at his door. Anger curled out from his spark, but he didn’t answer his partner’s emotional upset. Instead, he stomped to his bed and flopped gracelessly down. The expensive foam gave and molded around his canopy and arms. Moments later, he felt Thundercracker’s weight settle beside him, and he grumbled into the coverings. “My builder thinks we’re idiots. I’m going to recharge, probably data purge half the night, pace frantically the other half of the night, then go to work tomorrow and quite possibly set off a chemical explosion.”

“I… I don’t want them to leave.”

“Then you’d best hope Trailbreaker can keep them from doing so, while you and I work tomorrow,” Starscream said, after an uneasy pause. He heard the plea for comfort in Thundercracker’s voice. He did. But he had none to share. Knock Out’s lecture had only served to remind Starscream where Skywarp had found their twin hetaira. And where _he_ had found _Skywarp_. Knock Out hadn’t thought Skywarp a good third, for all that Knock Out had adored the mech. He had said they had been built in places too far apart for comfort, but Starscream had still been too lost in his attraction to Skywarp’s wildness to understand what Knock Out meant.

Now, Starscream closed his optics and tried not to flinch away when Thundercracker’s weight shifted down to the bed. When Thunder tried to squeeze under his wing, he looked back over it in surprise. Thundercracker went still, when he didn’t lift his wing, and waited. Venting again, Starscream finally lifted it in silent invitation. Thundercracker settled, dipping his own wing to fit beneath. Starscream thought about inviting Skywarp. But he felt Thundercracker’s unease mingling with his own. He felt their partner locking them out of his spark. He wondered if Thundercracker had tried Skywarp first and found a locked door.

It would be a long night.

* * *

The next morning, the scent of Sunstreaker’s favorite treats tickled him awake. The aches all over his body doubled in response to his movement. Trailbreaker was fond of saying that was his body’s telling him its needs. He always offered those treats, saying they helped ease his soreness, but Sideswipe had privately told Sunstreaker that _he_ thought Trailbreaker was bribing or coddling by offering the extra goodies. Sunstreaker still liked getting the copper-tart, silica-sweet gels. 

It left him feeling guilty.

After shoving Sideswipe off of him and stumbling to the door, Sunstreaker blinked at the offered goodies held near his chest. Then he looked up at Skywarp.

His shoulder joints slumped, his optics were dim, and the tray trembled in Skywarp’s hand. Even his wings drooped. The mech was exhausted. Frowning, Sunstreaker took the tray, just so it wouldn’t drop. Skywarp rubbed his freed hand over his face. “I… Trailbreaker has breakfast ready. I… Well, I wanted to… Can I talk to you?”

Trailbreaker having breakfast for them in the kitchen wasn’t unusual. Hand delivered sweets were. Sunstreaker didn’t want Sideswipe to be right, and his darkening expression backed Skywarp up with the mech’s hands up defensively. “Easy, Sun! Don’t be mad -- Well, I guess I deserve it, if you are, but I just wanna talk!”

Skywarp shifted on his pedes, as Sunstreaker’s scowl deepened. He knew Skywarp adored them. If only Sunstreaker could tell that adoration apart from the way they would have treated a volt cat.

Well, a volt cat they would be willing to frag.

Sunstreaker heard Sideswipe stir behind him, and he glanced back before stepping out of the doorway and back into the bedroom he shared with Sideswipe. Skywarp perked up, optics widened in surprise, and shuffled inside. Sunstreaker tapped the door control as soon as he could, and he put the tray of the gooey treats on the bed.

Sideswipe sat up, looking at Skywarp, and the seeker visibly forced himself to relax. He opened his mouth and shut it. Skywarp shuffled on his pedes, and Sunstreaker’s patience snapped.

“You wanted to talk,” Sunstreaker said. “So talk.”

Skywarp flinched. But when he opened his mouth this time, he managed to speak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I was, you know, fraggin’ up, but I guess… I guess I was, huh?”

“You weren’t so bad,” Sideswipe muttered. Sunstreaker watched his brother get off the bed and walk over to the treats. “You at least talk to us.”

“You play a mean game of round shot,” Skywarp replied weakly.

“Yeah, well. You weren’t as bad,” Sideswipe said, scooping up two of the gels. Skywarp flinched. Sideswipe frowned, but continued, “Didn’t just act like we’re...convenient. Like we’re just things for you guys to use.”

“I… I did. Kind of. Maybe not like Thunder. Like Star. But... I did. And… Well, it took me a while to connect it. And I’m sorry. I do like _you_. I don’t -- I don’t want you hurt. I really don’t. An’ I don’t wanna have hurt you.” Skywarp looked down at the floor and rocked on his heels before settling. “You guys are really great, an’... I’d miss you if I was stupid enough to make you not wanna see me again. I mean, I’d understand if… If you left us. I would. But… Think we could still be friends? I wouldn’t expect nothin’! Just to hang out. I don’t… I don’t really have any friends left. Not now.”

Sideswipe looked at Sunstreaker. His gaze dropped to the gels in his hand. He put one in his mouth, and Sunstreaker vented. “I don’t want to leave. We’re...talking about it.”

“Okay. So… Sideswipe wants to leave? I get that. S’okay. I just wanted to ask if we could stay friends. Not like friends that frag, if you didn’t wanna. Just friends.” Skywarp looked up, finally, and tried to smile. 

Of the seekers, Sunstreaker thought Skywarp was most like them. And thinking about last night, the way Thundercracker treated Skywarp left Sunstreaker feeling uneasy.

“You’re bonded,” Sunstreaker said after a moment. “Kind of like me and Si.”

“Kind of, yeah,” Skywarp replied.

“So you can’t leave them.”

Skywarp looked down at the floor. “I love them.”

“We’d still be your friends, Sky,” Sideswipe said after he swallowed the treat. “We’re gonna go get breakfast. Wanna come?”

“You sure? I mean --”

“Come on, Sky. Star went to work, right? And Thunder’s gone on his business tour? Or did they change their plans?” Sideswipe’s snide mutter had Skywarp flinching, but the seeker shook his head. Sideswipe hesitated. After a moment, he walked over to wrap an arm around Skywarp’s wing. Always an awkward prospect with the limb’s size and position on seeker anatomy. Sideswipe had ducked more than one unintended blow, in their time here. Skywarp let Sideswipe’s push him to the door.

Sunstreaker followed, rubbing his hips as they protested, and he thought about last night. He remembered Skywarp bound under him. He remembered the way Thundercracker had pushed Skywarp aside. Skywarp had been -- well. Skywarp was Skywarp. Thundercracker said he liked to care for his partners, but pushing Skywarp aside felt a lot like how the seekers behaved with them. Hurrying just enough to catch up with his brother and the seeker, he tentatively mirrored Sideswipe’s casual hold.

Maybe Skywarp really meant his apology. He wasn’t all that different from them.

* * *

“Hey, Sideswipe! Sunstreaker!”

Sideswipe lifted his head from watching the round shot game his brother and Skywarp played. Trailbreaker came toward them from the main hall of the second floor. Behind Trailbreaker, Sideswipe saw a mismatched pair of ground frame mechs exiting the lift. Sideswipe smiled out of habit, but as his thoughts caught up, he frowned. While the servants were allowed to have guests visit them, those guests weren’t supposed to come into the main areas.

“Guys, this is my builder!” Trailbreaker just about _danced_ as he turned back to help the smaller mech up the slight rise into the game room. The small mech had a sleek frame and glossy red and silver plating. Not at all what Sideswipe would have pictured as being Trailbreaker’s builder. His middle bulged with a new sparkling barely contained in his build chamber, and Sideswipe almost broke and ran. Trailbreaker, still bouncing, pointed to the hulking brute that had come with his builder, “And that’s my uncle, Breakdown.”

“Evenin’,” the hulking mech said with a grin, then ‘Uncle Breakdown’ wandered over to the spirits cabinet purposefully.

Knock Out leaned up against the round shot table and gave Sideswipe and his brother a wry smile. He pointed at both of them in turn. “Let’s see -- _you’re_ Sideswipe, and _you’re_ Sunstreaker, aren’t you? Sky. Darling, it’s good to see you again. Still enjoying the high life?”

“Didn’t know you were comin’, Knock Out,” Skywarp mumbled. Wings twitching, he set the paddle in his hands down. He slumped and shifted on his pedes. Skywarp’s obvious unease made Sideswipe twitch as the seeker continued, “Starscream ain’t here. Neither’s Thunder.”

“I gather he didn’t bother to tell you I was coming to meet these two, did he? Probably ran off as soon as he could this morning. Him _and_ Thunder both.”

“Can you blame the kid? He _hates_ being parented,” Breakdown snickered, pouring himself a glass of Starscream’s personal favorite. “And Thunder’s a shiny peg in a box, ain’t he?”

Skywarp snorted before he caught himself, but Knock Out laughed.

Sideswipe watched Breakdown and thought, just for a moment, about stopping him. Thundercracker _was_ very keen on propriety. Keeping things clean and in their place, just as the insult suggested. So was Starscream, even if he wasn’t as bad. Ground frames were _staff_ and not entitled to the booze up here. Unless the ground frames were frag toys.

Sideswipe gritted his denta at the thought and turned back to Knock Out. Let Breakdown drink the whole bottle of Starscream’s favorite vintage; he didn’t care. His gaze fell on the mech’s median seam, parted all the way down his abdomen. And the newspark’s shell bulging under the visible build chamber platelets beneath it.

Knock Out’s smirk broadened when Sideswipe flinched away. “Oh, settle down. I’m not _actually_ parting for another week. And I’m a doctor. I do know how to read my own scans.”

Wait, what? Sideswipe cycled his audials, uncertain he had heard correctly. “You’re a doctor? I thought you were… And that we couldn’t...”

“I think you’ve gotten the wrong impression from my idiot child and his partners.” Knock Out laughed. He crooked a finger at Sunstreaker. “Come here. I want to talk to you both -- alone, Sky, and then I will talk to you, my child, and your partners when those two return. I need help to the couch, Sunstreaker. Trails and Breaker can play round shot with Skywarp.”

“Hey!” Skywarp snapped as Knock Out rested a hand on Sunstreaker’s arm. Sunstreaker hesitated, then he let the smaller mech lean on him as they walked away. Sideswipe glanced at Trailbreaker, who grinned and waved him along.

Breakdown ambled over, grinning. “Come on, you big sparklet. Set up the table. You know I’ll whip your thrusters again --”

Sideswipe followed his brother and Knock Out into the lounge. With its heavy drapes and carefully angled walls, the lounge off of the game room was always quiet. Knock Out usurped Starscream’s favorite chair with Sunstreaker’s help. It lacked arms, as all of them did, but the expensive foam inside the deep red polymer upholstery molded to a body. The slight mech looked up at Sideswipe. “Well? Are you going to sit or not? Trails said you asked about me, a couple of times, Sunstreaker.”

Sunstreaker sat on the low refreshment table in front of Knock Out and cleared his intake. Finally, he mumbled, “Well… Trailbreaker mentioned he was Starscream’s brother, and that, well, you had our...job.”

“House-brother, yes. With another house-brother on the way,” Knock Out said, patting the parted median seam. Sideswipe flinched, and Knock Out sniffed. “Oh, don’t do that. The process that gets you here is _phenomenal_ , but if you aren’t ready, Starscream is a fool to push you.”

Sideswipe cycled his optics and audials, uncertain he had heard right. Knock Out had called Starscream his idiot child, earlier. “We agreed to do it...”

“Agreeing to a future build is _not_ the same as being ready for it to happen right now,” Knock Out said, rolling one broad shoulder in a shrug. “And all of you are too young to consider igniting a newspark, anyway. Now, Starscream told me everything you said to him -- that he remembered. But how about _you_ tell me what they’ve done, hmm? You look comfortable with Skywarp. That’s something.”

Sideswipe looked at Sunstreaker, meeting his twin’s gaze. Sunstreaker shrugged, and Sideswipe reset his vocalizer, thinking. “We met Skywarp in a dive bar, on the south side of lower Vos. And, well…”

Knock Out nodded and settled back to listen. “Go on. I can’t fix his mess for him without knowing what he’s done. And don’t be embarrassed about the details. I was built in Vos. I know seekers.”

Looking down at his hands, Sideswipe opened and closed them, once. Then he vented. “Well, I’ve wondered if we made a mistake. But it’s so weird. Sometimes it’s great, and things are good… Star was really nice when we moved in. Thunder, too. And it’s not that they’re mean… It’s…”

“You feel like pets, he said.” Knock Out nodded. “Trails said Star has been more of a jerk than a lover.”

“He’s pushy. And Thunder’s worse. They act like they know everything, and all they talk about together is parties and gossip and business, and they never talk to _us_ , except to frag and give orders…” Sideswipe crumpled, hiding his face in his hands. He felt Sunstreaker’s flinch echo through his own spark, but he didn’t look up. “I do… We do love them. But…”

“-- my second child really is an idiot.” Knock Out snorted. “And I begin to resent becoming an adult myself. I knew the quiet meant trouble. All right then, lovelies. You love them. Is that enough for you to stay?”

“You agree with us? If you were built here, how…?” Sunstreaker asked, instead of answering.

“Yes, I was built in Vos,” Knock Out confirmed. “My builder wasn’t. Nor my donor, for that matter. Breakdown wasn’t built here, either. Our builders are merchants. They moved their specialty rebuilds business here between our partings. And that’s how I became a doctor; I know you wondered about that. I do need you to answer the question. If it’s not enough… Well, that happens sometimes. It would teach them a lesson, wouldn’t it? And you wouldn’t need to suffer through it yourself.”

“Sounds like you want us to leave,” Sideswipe muttered.

“Well. You’re like Skywarp. I don’t think it’s good to mix classes so far apart. You’re seeing what trouble it can cause firsthand. If you leave, I’ll find them someone better suited --”

“ _Frag_ you,” Sideswipe hissed. “We’re plenty suited --”

“Ha! Then how, exactly, has it come to _parental intervention_ , hmm?”

“You rusted up, underbalanced, underclocked --” Sideswipe snapped his jaws shut, snarling at Knock Out’s smirk. He realized the trick too late. Jerking to his pedes, Sideswipe loomed over the slight mech. “We aren’t leaving so you can be a jerk to them and put some tittering waste scrap in our place. You aren’t going to insult us out.”

Knock Out chuckled, a low rich sound that startled both twins. “Aren’t _you_ a feisty one? What about you, Sunstreaker? Are you going to yell at a poor, defenseless mech --”

“Shut up,” Sunstreaker snarled.

“I think,” Knock Out said with a slow, smug grin, “you’ll do, then. Close your mouth, Sideswipe, and sit down. Starscream said you’d done well in your ‘lessons’. Now, children, let’s discuss what you should have learned…”


	12. Family Fun Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another round of thanks to 12drakon for editing help! And adding thanks to Dracoqueen22 for troubleshooting.

Fingers meshed behind his head, Sideswipe lay back on Sunstreaker’s studio floor. He decided he was going to buy the servants new furniture so he could move the rattiest chair they had up here. Before coming here, the twins had rested (and more) on the ground (or worse). But if they really meant to stay, they didn’t _need_ to now. And Sunstreaker could work around a chair in here.

And if they did leave, Knock Out had promised Starscream would honor their contract. If true, they would never be homeless again.

“You trust them?” Sunstreaker murmured.

Sideswipe lifted his chin for an upside-down view of his brother’s backside as Sunstreaker worked on a sketch. Nice view aside, he thought about the question for a long minute. “Well. I believe they love us. They’re just...stupid, like Knock Out said. I mean, Skywarp’s caught a clue, but… It’s just a clue, but it’s something.”

“But do you trust them?” his brother repeated. After a pause, he added, “Do you trust Knock Out?”

Groaning, Sideswipe pulled his hands from behind his head to cover his face. “He is a jerk, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. He kinda is.” Sunstreaker said, and Sideswipe could hear his frown in every word.

“I don’t know, Sun. That Vosian history lesson was rough enough. I’m guessing he’s not lying. And he’s all over blunt enough to use as a club,” Sideswipe said into his palms. “Yeah. I guess I do trust him.”

“I want to stay.”

“I know, Sun. I know. And I do, too. So, we’ll do what Knock Out said. Shove back. If they really love us, they’ll back up.” Sideswipe ground the heels of his palms into his closed optics.

“What if they don’t?” he thought he heard Sunstreaker whisper. Sideswipe didn’t ask; he didn’t really want to think about that. Not yet.

* * *

When Starscream finally could not put off going home any longer, he found Thundercracker and Skywarp huddled on opposite ends of the sitting room sectional. Thundercracker stared at the wall. Skywarp stared into the nearly empty glass he held, expression miserable. Breakdown sat on their low table bent over his brother’s middle, carefully inspecting the strained, just-parted seam. Starscream thought about turning around, but Knock Out’s parental sense made him look up _right_ then. Straightening to cover his flinch, Starscream sauntered into the room.

When Nacelle had ascended to House Lord, Starscream had petitioned for and been granted the right to head his own household within the family. He was an adult. This was his home. Knock Out had no right to make him feel like a sparkling.

“Welcome home, Star. I should have figured you’d sneak out before I could get here. And you certainly took your time coming home.” Knock Out smirked as Breakdown completed his visual inspection and medical scans.

Being an adult in one’s own household was obviously little protection. Starscream hunched up before he could stop himself, and Knock Out clicked his tongue. “Stop that. I swear I will find a way to smack Horizon one of these days.”

“Can’t smack the dead, Nono,” Starscream muttered.

Knock Out smiled at the childish nickname Starscream had grown up using. He pointed to the sectional between Thundercracker and Skywarp. “Sit. I think it’s more than time for a chat, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

“Sit.” Knock Out repeated with a smirk and waited for Starscream to obey. “Now. Skywarp, why don’t you tell them what you told Breakdown?”

“But I don’t --” Skywarp cut off at Knock Out’s flat look. Wings tightening to his body defensively, Skywarp looked down at the floor between his pedes. “They’re just gonna yell at me. I’m tired of being yelled at.”

“We do not --” Thundercracker hissed.

Starscream buried his face in his palms, but he just caught Breakdown reaching over to smack Thundercracker. His builder’s brother growled, “Not your turn to talk, Thunder.”

“How dare you --”

“Shut up, Thunder,” Starscream mumbled without looking up. “I’m tired of fighting.”

He felt Thundercracker shift on the sectional to face him, but Knock Out clapped his hands together. “ _Stop!_ You’ll have a turn to talk. Right now, you’re going to listen to Skywarp.”

Thundercracker ground his denta audibly, but he settled back. After a moment, Skywarp mumbled, “I… I thought we’d be...even. Family is supposed to be, and you promised. But it wasn’t like that. It’s still not like that, and…”

“Go on, kid. They need to hear it from you and the twins,” Breakdown said when Skywarp faltered.

“I felt like… Like I was trash. You wanted me, but not like I was worth anything to you,” Skywarp began. The words gained momentum as he spoke. Starscream looked up. Skywarp’s wings trembled, and in his lap, the glass squeaked in his hands. “When you two talked about getting someone else, I thought… I guess I thought it’d be better for me. But you didn’t treat me better. I just had someone to treat like you treated me. And that wasn’t -- It wasn’t better than before. I just thought it was. Then you both just stopped spending time with me, and I thought it was okay, because I could spend time with them, and -- and --”

Starscream had looked down at the floor, but he still heard Skywarp’s voice hitch the squeak of the glass he held.

“Last night, I thought… Primus. I don’t know what I thought. I felt like you wanted me, Thunder, but you just elbowed me out --”

“You were being obnoxious --!”

“ _Quiet!_ ” Breakdown roared. Starscream’s audials rang in the sudden silence. Breakdown reset his vocalizer and spat static for two seconds until it recovered from the outburst. “Sheesh. Are you glitched or just inbred stupid? He’s trying to tell you that you hurt him, you twit. And you pulled him into your kinky fun time without exactly explaining and asking him.”

“He agreed --!” Thundercracker sputtered. His wings lifted high and wide for an intimidating display.

Starscream flinched as he watched Breakdown reach out to jab a huge finger into Thundercracker’s canopy. “He didn’t know what he was agreeing to. You didn’t take the time to educate him, did you? You got a bead up your exhaust, and you flew on with it. You did that with Sunstreaker, too. You’re just _lucky_ he didn’t freak out like Skywarp.”

“Sunstreaker enjoys --”

“This isn’t about Sunstreaker enjoying it. It’s about your behavior, Thundercracker.” Breakdown cut him off. He jabbed Thundercracker in the chest again. “You said you left the scene because you didn’t like how some mechs acted, but I’m thinkin’ it’s so no one would watch you. And you didn’t think I could do anything.”

Unsurprisingly, Thundercracker exploded. Lurching upright, he shoved Breakdown back, regaining that space between them. Where Starscream went shrill with anger, and Skywarp sputtered incoherently, Thundercracker roared; a deep, echoing sound that filled and overflowed rooms when he lost his temper. “I left _the scene_ because Shatterwind decided he could aim higher, and Rainshadow jumped at the chance to take something from me. I left because I never wanted to see either of them again.”

“So you have to act like Skywarp ain’t good enough for you? ‘Cause someone else decided _you_ weren’t? And you gotta treat Sunstreaker like an animal?” Breakdown shouted back, voice tinny and hollow by comparison, which didn’t stop Thundercracker flinching back from Breakdown.

Or stop Starscream from flinching from the accusations himself.

“How dare you --”

Good old easygoing Breakdown stood up, with his whole height coming in just under Thundercracker’s aristocratic nose, and slammed his big fist into that chin. “ _Seekers_ ,” Breakdown muttered like a curse as Thundercracker collapsed down into his seat. “You ain’t better ‘cause you fly. That just means you got farther to fall down.”

Starscream stood up, shoving his hands between his partner and his builder’s brother. He threw a glare at his builder for bringing Breakdown in the first place. “Damn you all, I will _not_ live with violence in this household. You can’t pick at a mech and expect him to listen --”

“As if you’re listening to anyone, Starscream.” Knock Out snorted. “That’s rod calling shaft, isn’t it? You’re so full of your daydreams that your household is falling apart. _Sit_. Breakdown, stop breaking the children. Go pour yourself another drink and calm down.”

Snarling, Breakdown obeyed his younger brother and stomped over to the liquor cabinet, leaving Thundercracker crumpled on the sectional with his hands on his face. Skywarp stared in openmouthed shock. Starscream rounded on his builder, plating flaring and wings lifting with anger.

Knock Out rested his hands on either side of his parted median seam. Inside, Starscream’s younger brother twitched. The movements ruffled the unfurled platelets showing beneath Knock Out’s plating. _That_ made Starscream pause and modulate his voice back down to reasonable levels. “You _know_ that’s a sore spot, it’s not fair to poke it!”

“And I seem to recall suggesting you three wait a couple of centuries before bonding. Give all of you time to mature more,” Knock Out said. He folded his hands over bulge of his middle now, and vented, shaking his head. “You can’t add _more_ people to a shaky situation and expect it to get better. You _know_ better than that.”

Folding his arms over his canopy, Starscream turned to watch Skywarp set his glass down on the table. Shaking off his shock and surprising Starscream, Skywarp moved to help Thundercracker. Skywarp usually would only point and laugh when one of them found trouble.

Maybe he really shouldn’t argue that his household wasn’t falling apart.

“Hetaira provide --”

“Stop that. Don’t you dare repeat what Horizon had to say on the matter. Not to _me_. Tell me, did you ever think _I_ was subservient to Bitstream? Or Nacelle? Or Hotlink? Or that I’m just there to be ornamental? Or of _service_ to their spikes?” Knock Out snorted then jabbed a finger in Starscream’s direction. Instead of meeting his builder’s gaze, Starscream watched Breakdown pour their best distilled blend into a wide glass meant for the lighter mixes.

Breakdown had always been a terrible guest. It was always hard not to smile at his antics. Until he punched someone.

Knock Out went on, “Skywarp, did you want to tell Starscream how he’s made you feel?”

“I… I just wanted them to love me. I thought they did. I thought… I thought we’d be a family and take on the world together,” Skywarp whispered. His hands on Thundercracker remained gentle, dabbing the split dermal plating on Thundercracker’s chin with a buffing cloth from his subspace. Starscream watched one of Skywarp’s thumbs trace the split. Thundercracker looked up at their partner, optics wide and flickering in uncertainty. Skywarp hesitated then flicked his wings. “I thought… I thought, when we brought in the twins, they’d be the pets and it’d be okay again. Guess I’m not better’n you are.”

Starscream closed his optics, wishing this kind of exchange wasn’t all too familiar from his youth. Only it was Trailbreaker, in his memory, wanting Starscream to love him, and Starscream trying to explain that he did. No, he decided, being an adult in one’s own household was not the pretty picture of happiness he had always thought. Not like his build household had been.

Until they had come home to Vos from Nhequuy.

Nacelle’s ambassadorial term had ended in Starscream’s adolescence. House Lord Horizon had been eager to dote on his ‘only grandchild’. Starscream remembered, distantly, that he had tried to remind Horizon about Trailbreaker, at first. And he remembered how the mech had scoffed. Horizon’s reply had not been nice. Starscream remembered certain words about his donor, Bitstream, and his house-brother. Gradually, Starscream had stopped saying anything. But Starscream wasn’t like Horizon.

Was he?

Thundercracker wasn’t really a bad mech, either….was he?

“We love you, Sky,” Starscream whispered. “And they’re not… Sideswipe and Sunstreaker weren’t meant to be _pets_. No mech is a pet.”

Breakdown turned around, lifting his glass and opening his mouth. Starscream lifted both hands to forestall comment. “No! Hush, Breakdown. I totally don’t want to hear about your latest conquest. It’s bad enough living with you around inured me to Thunder’s proclivities.”

“It’s not like that!” Thundercracker growled, lifting his hands to grasp Skywarp’s wrists. “There’s nothing wrong with what I prefer!”

“If there’s not, then how did you upset Sky with it?” Starscream snapped back.

“Primus, stop it! Both of you!” Skywarp shouted over both of them. He pulled his hands free from Thundercracker’s hold and glared at both of them. “I was okay until… Well, it was all hot as anything until he elbowed me off Sun.”

“You were being...thoughtless,” Thundercracker finished after a pause. Starscream was very grateful he had not said ‘stupid’ this time.

“Yeah. I was.” Skywarp looked down at the floor, then reached out to draw a finger alongside Thundercracker’s gashed chin. “But I felt...replaced. Not...better? I thought you’d see me as better. And I was okay with being better.”

Thundercracker folded his arms over his canopy and pulled his chin away from Skywarp’s gentle touch. Skywarp let him and looked up at Starscream. “So what do we do now? They hate us, and we can’t stand each other.”

Thundercracker echoed Starscream’s own flinch.

“Help me up,” Knock Out interrupted them. He accepted Skywarp’s help with a pat to the other’s arm. “They don’t hate you. More’s the pity. It would be easier to teach you three a lesson if they left you, but they want to stay with you sorry lot. Primus knows why. Now, if you don’t want any _other_ parents finding out about this, I’m laying down some rules for you.”

“This is my household,” Starscream muttered. “You can’t just come in here and tell me what to do.”

“Well, you’ve done a fine job with your household, haven’t you? Your hetaira have locked themselves up below, your partners are mad at you and each other. Bravo, Star,” Knock Out drawled. “Nacelle should have stayed out of Vos longer, while you were in second stage, so you didn’t absorb Horizon’s stupidity. But, you know, including Thundercracker was just a mistake from the start --”

Thundercracker jerked to a stand, and for a terrible moment Starscream thought he would do something completely stupid. Instead, Thundercracker spun on a thruster and stomped away.

“Builder!” Starscream whirled around to face a laughing Knock Out.

Knock Out nodded to his brother as Breakdown glanced at him. Breakdown set his emptied glass down and followed Thundercracker from the room. Smirk broadening, Knock Out looked back up at Starscream. “Oh, calm down. He needs a firmer hand than you’ve given him. Now, you… You, I think, need to spend time with your twins and Skywarp. But let _them_ pick the entertainment. Listen to them. Learn who they are instead of dismissing them when you can’t be bothered.”

Reaching up, Knock Out framed Starscream’s face with his hands. “You have a great spark, Star. You really do. You need to show that to the mechs you love now. Sky, help me down to see Trailbreaker. Starscream needs to go beg the twins to spend time with you two.”

“You said you were giving me rules?” Starscream growled. “In my home, I might add.”

“Oh, I did, didn’t I? Well, take notes then, silly flit.” Knock Out leaned on Skywarp’s hesitantly offered arm, smirk every bit as biting as Starscream remembered. “First, you’re all going to have to start _talking_ to each other. Learn about Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. About Skywarp, too, while you’re at it. Two, you and Thundercracker are going to stop talking over all of them. Skywarp, you can’t talk over Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, either. Third, if you don’t understand what someone says and _especially_ if you think they’re wrong, you need to stop and think about it or ask them to explain. _Politely_ , now. You can’t walk over a mech and dismiss their experience because it’s not like yours.”

“I do _not_ \--” Starscream snapped his jaw shut when Knock Out turned to look at him. The lines of his builder’s face pinched with disappointment, and Starscream felt like a wingless seekerling caught climbing in the kitchen for treats.

“You’ve always had a problem listening, Star. And Thunder’s even worse at it. You’ve said you love them. You’ve said you love Sky. I’ve told you how to prove it, and you don’t want to listen to me?” Knock Out patted Skywarp’s arm and waddled out with more dignity than Starscream would have credited to a gravid frame.

For a time, he listened to them move down the hall, simply glaring at the archway. When the sound faded, he buried his face in his hands. Right that moment, he really wanted to talk to Trailbreaker himself. Not face the twins. Certainly not to spend the late evening somehow not fighting with them. Or Skywarp.

Smelt his life.

* * *

Thundercracker heard Breakdown follow him, but he ignored the grounder save for a sidelong glare. He didn’t care for Starscream’s less than society-conscious family. He could cope with that quaver in his senses with Skywarp. He could ignore it, too, with Starscream. It was much harder with Breakdown.

The way Breakdown smirked had always disturbed him.

“Hard to have a talk with you runnin’ away.”

Stopping short outside the door to his private rooms, Thundercracker growled and turned to glare down the length of his nose at the ground-frame mech. Breakdown burst into laughter, startling him into taking a step back.

“I’ve put better mechs in their place, you big sparklet. Do yourself a favor and let us into your room.”

“No. I have nothing to say to you. This is my home, and you’ve come into it to provoke and assault me --”

Breakdown shoved himself into Thundercracker’s personal space, pulling his lips back in something to the left of a smile. “Ain’t asking. I’m _telling_ you to open the damn door.”

Thundercracker pinged his door open before conscious thought could intervene. Breakdown grabbed his elbow, turned him, and steered him inside in a firm grip. Inside, Thundercracker stumbled, his anger surging back to the surface. Yanking his arm free, he growled at Breakdown, “Keep your hands off of me, Breakdown, or I will have you arrested.”

The grounder tapped the control by the door, expression cool. “You won’t. It’d upset Star. Ain’t here to hurt you. We’re gonna talk some more.”

“Get out of my room, Breakdown. I have nothing --”

“I said _sit_ ,” Breakdown ordered.

Thundercracker took two steps back before he stopped. Still glaring, he set both hands on his hips. “Very funny, Breakdown. I’m not a submissive. _Out_.”

The door chimed softly to announce its lock sequence engaged. Thundercracker ground his denta, but Breakdown closed the distance between them. Thundercracker either had to step back or let the damn grounder invade his space again.

He scrambled backward until his knees hit his bed, and he dropped to his aft on it.

“That’s better, Thunder.” Breakdown stood over him, looking down at him with the particular smirk that set Thundercracker on edge. “Now let’s have a little talk, you an’ me.”

“Get out of my room, Breakdown. I didn’t invite you in here. And as you’ve _hit_ me, the last thing I want to do is talk to you,” Thundercracker snarled.

“That’s fair, I guess. Didn’t ask before we started, did I?” Breakdown caught Thundercracker’s sore chin. His smirk broadened as Thundercracker squirmed. “Stop that – That’s better. Let me look.”

“Quit talking to me like I’m your _pet_! We are not having a scene!”

“I wouldn’t have you, Thunder. I don’t think my nephew would understand if I started playing with you. As he says, bad enough we’re both inclined.”

“Have me?” Thundercracker hissed. He brought a hand up, knocking Breakdown’s hand away from him. “I am _not_ a subm--”

“Stop,” Breakdown ordered with quiet intensity. But he stepped back, giving Thundercracker the room to draw in a shaky breath, His smirk widened again. “Shatterwind talked, you know. Said you weren’t _really_ a Master.”

Thundercracker flinched, hands flexing in the bed covers on either side of his thighs. “Lying, worthless _fragger_ \--”

“Oh, he’s worthless and a fragger. But some of us already knew, Thunder. Just weren’t crass enough to come at you.”

“Get. Out. Now. Get out!” Thundercracker shoved Breakdown back. He tried to jerk to his pedes. “You will not talk to me about him or --”

“You will listen to me,” Breakdown roared, shoving back. Having the leverage, he kept Thundercracker down, catching the seeker’s hands. “You _do_ like being a Master. And you _can_ be good at it, when you ain’t got your head up your tailpipe. _But it’s not all you want!_ And some of us had you figured out already, you dimspark. You just fell for about the worst mech possible when you decided to _act_ on it. _Seekers._ ”

Breakdown said it like a curse.

Thundercracker looked away. Through clenched jaws, he said, “I am not --”

“Just stop, mech. There’s no shame in it. Unless you think Sunstreaker or Skywarp should be in here having words with you about respect?”

“They’re not --” Thundercracker cut himself off. His fingers twitched in Breakdown’s hold.

“They aren’t what, Thunder? Come on, talk to me. ‘Cause while Starscream’s got his own baggage here, thanks to Vos in general and Horizon in particular, _you’re_ a damn mess.” Breakdown shook his head. “What you want ain’t the problem here. Except that you’re freaking out over it.”

Thundercracker glared at the floor. “I am the child of a higher household than Star, _grounder_. I did not grow up to disappoint them.”

Fingers flexing around Thundercracker’s, Breakdown vented slowly. “Thunder. I said there’s no shame in wanting to give up control sometimes. I mean it. Your build household’s got nothing to do with what you do in private with your mechs here.”

“Shatterwind… Said he wouldn’t talk. If I… If I left.” Thundercracker looked at the floor and felt his tank churn. “It matters which side you’re on. You can’t just stand there and tell me it doesn’t.”

Breakdown crouched in front of Thundercracker, squeezing his hands again. Thundercracker scowled down at the mech. Breakdown smirked back. “It was okay for _Shatterwind_ to sub, it’d be okay for _Sky_ to sub, but not you?”

“Let go of me,” Thundercracker muttered. He tugged on his hands without real strength.

Instead of obeying, Breakdown rubbed his thumbs over Thundercracker’s knuckles. “Sky said you guys went looking for your twins after you and he got into a fight, Thunder. He wanted to spike.”

“He threw an art piece at me.”

“Yeah. He was pretty frustrated. He didn’t like feeling like you thought he was worthless.”

“If I…”

“He doesn’t like you thinking he’s worthless for the things he likes. If you just didn’t like takin’ spike… Well, you wouldn’t like it. He’d go to Star, whom I’ve the unfortunate pleasure of knowing _does_ like it. But you made him doubt himself. And Star doesn’t really know how to handle battles in his own home. Knocks and them don’t really argue, even when they disagree.

“So here’s the thing, Thunder. I saw quick enough how much you envied some of the subs. I knew it was something you wanted. I’m not the only one that saw, either.” He vented as Thundercracker shuddered and tried to pull away. ”Stop that. They don’t matter now, do they? You’ve got mechs here that love you. _Four_ mechs, I want to point out. You’re pretty lucky. Do you _really_ think they’d love you less for knowing you want to be the one tied up sometimes?”

“Won’t they?” Thundercracker whispered. “Shatterwind --”

“And you’ve got us as family now, Thunder. Maybe Knocks and them ain’t into our kind of play, but Nacelle ain’t shy about throwing his political power around now that he’s House Lord.” Rainshadow can’t touch that.” Breakdown squeezed his fingers.

“I’m _not_. I _can’t_.”

“You love them?”

“Yes.”

“You believe they love you? Keep in mind, I know you can feel Star and Sky, and the twins haven’t run yet, as slagged off as they are.”

Thundercracker hesitated. He didn’t like being cornered, and the last time he had talked about that aspect of his desires had been a disaster. He didn’t know what he thought right now, except his life was falling apart all over again.

“Look, Thunder, just try to trust them? Try to give them all of you? You can’t make families work without trust. Without a give and take.”

“I’ll...think about it. Satisfied?”

Breakdown grinned up at him. “Enough. Now let me do something about your chin, Thunder. I, uh, cracked the dermas there…”

“I never liked you.”

Breakdown laughed.


End file.
